Blog Con­tent

All data and infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed on this site is for infor­ma­tion­al pur­pos­es only and may reflect the per­son­al expe­ri­ences of the author and con­tribut­ing authors. While all infor­ma­tion is true and com­plete to the best of our knowl­edge, we can give no guar­an­tee as to the accu­ra­cy, com­plete­ness, suit­abil­i­ty, or valid­i­ty of any infor­ma­tion on this site and will not be held liable for any errors, omis­sions, or delays in this infor­ma­tion or any loss­es, injuries, or dam­ages aris­ing from its use.

Com­pen­sa­tion

Author will not com­pen­sate you in any way what­so­ev­er if you ever hap­pen to suf­fer a loss/inconvenience or dam­age because of/while mak­ing use of infor­ma­tion in this blog. All infor­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed on an as-is basis and is to be con­sid­ered infor­ma­tion­al only, and should be fact checked.

Blog Com­ments

I encour­age you to add a com­ment to this dis­cus­sion. Com­ments may be edit­ed for spelling, com­ment clar­i­ty, or to keep out ques­tion­able mat­ters.  Off-top­ic or com­ments may not be pub­lished, delet­ed, or both if they do not per­tain to the sub­ject mat­ter.

By sub­mit­ting a com­ment you agree that the com­ment con­tent is your own, and to hold this site and all sub­sidiaries and rep­re­sen­ta­tives harm­less from any and all reper­cus­sions, dam­ages, or lia­bil­i­ty.

Finan­cial Dis­clo­sure

This blog accepts cash pay­ments for adver­tis­ing, spon­sor­ships, inser­tions or oth­er forms of com­pen­sa­tion for our ser­vices. Even though we some­times receive com­pen­sa­tion for posts, links to affil­i­ate sites (such as Amazon.com) or adver­tise­ments, we always give our hon­est opin­ions, find­ings, beliefs, or expe­ri­ences on those top­ics or prod­ucts.

Dis­claimer

To all Fed­er­al, State, Coun­ty, Local and oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies not direct­ly indi­cat­ed here­in who browse, audit, read, com­pile con­tent, log, add to any data­base for future ref­er­ence, infor­ma­tion sur­round­ing the con­tent found pub­lished here­in.  This blog, weblog, web­site, here­in defined as “elec­tron­ic pub­li­ca­tion” is pub­lished for dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness for use by it’s users, browsers, sub­scribers, view­ers, etc.  For def­i­n­i­tion, “dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness” will be defined as a process of ensur­ing that a per­son, fam­i­ly, group, team, and/or orga­ni­za­tion has com­plied with pre­ven­tive mea­sures derived from read­ing this and oth­er elec­tron­ic pub­li­ca­tions, and is in a state of readi­ness to con­tain the effects of a fore­cast­ed dis­as­trous event, nat­ur­al or man made, to min­i­mize loss of life, injury, and dam­age to his, her, or oth­er prop­er­ty, can pro­vide res­cue, relief, reha­bil­i­ta­tion, and oth­er ser­vices in the after­math of the dis­as­ter, and has the capa­bil­i­ty and resources to con­tin­ue to sus­tain its essen­tial func­tions with­out being over­whelmed by the demand placed on them.

Con­cur­rent to the above, in no way is this elec­tron­ic pub­li­ca­tion an anti-gov­ern­ment nor is it an anti Unit­ed States pub­li­ca­tion of any kind what­so­ev­er.  If any such con­tent exists with­in, on, or is pub­lished on such elec­tron­ic pub­li­ca­tion, it exists by coin­ci­dence only, and in no way reflects an anti Unit­ed States or anti — gov­ern­ment sen­ti­ment, and should not be con­sid­ered a threat to any Fed­er­al, State, Coun­ty, local or oth­er gov­ern­ment enti­ty what­so­ev­er.

Def­i­n­i­tions of spe­cif­ic con­tent used in “Dis­claimer”

“Process,” Sequence of inter­de­pen­dent and linked  pro­ce­dures  which, at every  stage , con­sume one or more  resources  ( employ­ee  time,  ener­gy ,  machines ,  mon­ey ) to con­vert inputs ( data ,  mate­r­i­al ,  parts , etc.) into  out­puts . These out­puts then serve as inputs for the next stage until a known  goal  or  end result  is reached.

“Orga­ni­za­tion,” A social  unit  of peo­ple, sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly  struc­tured  and man­aged to meet a  need  or to pur­sue col­lec­tive  goals  on a  con­tin­u­ing  basis. All orga­ni­za­tions have a  man­age­ment   struc­ture  that deter­mines  rela­tion­ships  between  func­tions  and  posi­tions , and sub­di­vides and del­e­gates  roles ,  respon­si­bil­i­ties , and  author­i­ty  to car­ry out defined  tasks . Orga­ni­za­tions are  open sys­tems  in that they affect and are affect­ed by the  envi­ron­ment  beyond their bound­aries.

“Mea­sures,”  Actions  tak­en either in  antic­i­pa­tion  of an  event  or in a need­ed event.

“Readi­ness,” State of pre­pared­ness of  per­sons ,  sys­tems , or  orga­ni­za­tions  to meet a sit­u­a­tion and car­ry out a planned sequence of  actions . Readi­ness is based on thor­ough­ness of the  plan­ning ,  ade­qua­cy  and  train­ing  of the  per­son­nel , and  sup­ply  and  reserve  of  sup­port ser­vices  or sys­tems.

“Dis­as­trous Events” Man-made  event  (such as an armed  con­flict , riot­ing, war) or a nat­ur­al event (such as an earth­quake,  flood , hur­ri­cane) that pre­cip­i­tates a  dis­as­ter .

“Loss,” Unre­cov­er­able and usu­al­ly unan­tic­i­pat­ed and  non-recur­ring   removal  of, or decrease in, an  asset  or  resource .

“Injury,” Includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to  Dam­age  to a  prop­er­ty , or bod­i­ly  harm  to a  per­son .  Dis­ease or  impair­ment  of a per­son­’s body or mind.  Infringe­ment , wrong, or  vio­la­tion  of a  legal   right  for which  law   pro­vides   dam­ages . Also called  legal injury .

“Dam­age,” Harm  or  injury  to a  per­son ,  prop­er­ty , or  sys­tem  result­ing in  impair­ment  or loss of  func­tion , use­ful­ness, or  val­ue .

“Prop­er­ty,”  Arti­cle , item, or thing owned with the  rights  of  pos­ses­sion , use, and  enjoy­ment , and which the  own­er  can bestow, col­lat­er­al­ize, encum­ber,  mort­gage ,  sell , or  trans­fer , and can exclude every­one else from it. Two basic kinds of prop­er­ty are (1) Real ( land ), involv­ing a  degree  of geo­graph­i­cal fix­i­ty, and (2) Per­son­al (any­thing oth­er than real prop­er­ty) which does not involve geo­graph­i­cal fix­i­ty.  Per­son­al prop­er­ty  is sub­di­vid­ed into  tan­gi­ble  prop­er­ty (any phys­i­cal ani­mate or inan­i­mate  object ) and  intan­gi­ble prop­er­ty  ( intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty ).

“Pro­vide,” To  allo­cate  or give  resources  to a per­son, enti­ty or thing, usu­al­ly for pur­pos­es of  com­ple­tion  of a  project .

“Reha­bil­i­ta­tion,”  Restora­tion  of an  enti­ty  to its nor­mal or near-nor­mal  func­tion­al   capa­bil­i­ties  after the occur­rence of a dis­abling  event .

“Ser­vices,”  Intan­gi­ble   prod­ucts  such as  account­ing ,  bank­ing , clean­ing, con­sul­tan­cy,  edu­ca­tion ,  insur­ance ,  exper­tise , med­ical treat­ment, or  trans­porta­tion .  Some­times ser­vices are dif­fi­cult to iden­ti­fy because they are close­ly  asso­ci­at­ed  with a good; such as the  com­bi­na­tion  of a  diag­no­sis  with the  admin­is­tra­tion  of a med­i­cine. No  trans­fer  of  pos­ses­sion  or  own­er­ship  takes place when ser­vices are sold, and they (1) can­not be stored or trans­port­ed, (2) are instant­ly  per­ish­able , and (3) come into exis­tence at the time they are  bought  and con­sumed.

“After­math,” The  end result  of cumu­la­tive­ly neg­a­tive effects of adverse and often cat­a­stroph­ic  events  or sit­u­a­tions. For exam­ple, the after­math of a  com­pa­ny’s   bank­rupt­cy , earth­quake, flood, or oth­er event can leave many thou­sands of peo­ple  unem­ployed , with­out hous­ing, food, cloth­ing, or oth­er required resources.

“Dis­as­ter,” Calami­tous, dis­tress­ing, or ruinous effects of a  dis­as­trous event  (such as  drought ,  flood ,  fire , hur­ri­cane, war) of such  scale  that they dis­rupt (or threat­en to dis­rupt) crit­i­cal  func­tions  of an  orga­ni­za­tion , soci­ety or  sys­tem , for a  peri­od  long enough to sig­nif­i­cant­ly  harm  it or cause its  fail­ure . It is the con­se­quences of a dis­as­trous  event  and the inabil­i­ty of its  vic­tims  to cope with them that con­sti­tute a dis­as­ter, not the event itself. Although there is no uni­ver­sal­ly accept­ed def­i­n­i­tion of a dis­as­ter, the fol­low­ing obser­va­tion by the US  dis­as­ter relief   spe­cial­ist  Fred­er­ick C. Cuny (1944–1995) comes close, “A sit­u­a­tion result­ing from an envi­ron­men­tal phe­nom­e­non or armed  con­flict  that pro­duced  stress ,  per­son­al injury ,  phys­i­cal dam­age , and eco­nom­ic  dis­rup­tion  of great  mag­ni­tude .” The def­i­n­i­tion adopt­ed by the World  Health  Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO)  terms  a dis­as­ter as “The  result  of a vast eco­log­i­cal break­down  in the rela­tions between man and his  envi­ron­ment , a seri­ous and sud­den (or slow, as in drought) dis­rup­tion on such a scale that the strick­en  com­mu­ni­ty   needs  extra­or­di­nary efforts to cope with it, often with out­side help or inter­na­tion­al aid.” The US Fed­er­al  Emer­gency   Man­age­ment   Agency  (FEMA) describes it as “An occur­rence of a nat­ur­al  cat­a­stro­phe , tech­no­log­i­cal  acci­dent , or human caused event that has result­ed in  severe   prop­er­ty dam­age ,  deaths , and/or mul­ti­ple  injuries .” Dr. Kath­leen J. Tier­ney ( Direc­tor , Dis­as­ter  Research  Cen­ter, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware)  puts  the mat­ter in a dif­fer­ent  per­spec­tive : “Many peo­ple try­ing to do quick­ly what they do not ordi­nar­i­ly do, in an envi­ron­ment with which they are not famil­iar.”

“Capa­bil­i­ty,”  Mea­sure  of the  abil­i­ty  of an  enti­ty  ( depart­ment ,  orga­ni­za­tion ,  per­son ,  sys­tem ) to  achieve  its  objec­tives , spe­cial­ly in rela­tion to its over­all  mis­sion .

“Resource,” An eco­nom­ic or pro­duc­tive  fac­tor   required  to  accom­plish  an  activ­i­ty , or as  means  to under­take an  enter­prise  and  achieve  desired out­come. Three most basic resources are  land ,  labor , and  cap­i­tal ; oth­er resources include  ener­gy ,  entre­pre­neur­ship ,  infor­ma­tion ,  exper­tise ,  man­age­ment , and time.

“Demand,” An asser­tion of a  right , such as to seek a com­pen­sa­tion or  relief .

This page last edit­ed 01/24/2012