Managing an Emergency
There are many protocols which many emergency services use in dealing with an emergency, which usually start with planning before an emergency occurs. One commonly used system for demonstrating the phases is shown on the right.
Preparedness
The planning phase starts at preparedness, where the agencies decide on how they will respond to a given incident or set of circumstances. This should ideally include lines of command and control, and division of activities between agencies. This avoids potentially negative situations such as three separate agencies all starting an official rest center for victims of a disaster.
Response
Following an emergency occurring, the agencies then move to a response phase, where they execute their plans, and may end up improvising some areas of their response (due to gaps in the planning phase, which are inevitable due to the individual nature of most incidents).
Recovery
Agencies may then be involved in recovery following the incident, where they assist in the clear up from the incident, or help the people involved overcome their mental trauma.
Mitigation
The final phase in the circle is mitigation which involves taking steps to ensure that no re-occurrence is possible, or putting additional plans in place to ensure less damage is done. This should feed back in to the preparedness stage, with updated plans in place to deal with future emergencies, thus completing the circle.
