How to Prepare a School for an Earthquake Essay

Total Length: 959 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

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Emergency Management: Earthquake and School Safety

The preparatory tasks regarding facilities that need to be conducted in order to safely prepare for an earthquake at the school are the following: 1) the school’s structure should be checked by engineers to ensure that it can safely withstand an earthquake, and if the structure fails inspection, it should be fixed so that vulnerable weaknesses are mitigated; 2) students and staff should be educated on what to do in the case of an earthquake: this means that the school in its entirety has to be familiar with earthquake drills (which should be routinely practiced just like fire drills) and that the “drop, cover and hold on” policy is understood by all; 3) preparations should be made regarding having a cache of supplies on hand to last 2 weeks in the case of an earthquake that devastates the community. In such cases, the school will very likely need to be used as a place of shelter, so supplies must be on hand and the school and its community members must be made aware of how they can all assist in banding together to help people in need overcome their struggles; 4) in the event of an earthquake, it is important that everyone be accounted for, and for this reason the school should have a search and rescue team in place; this team should know what is expected of its members should they be called into service.

The kinds of stakeholder communications that should have already been conducted prior to a potential earthquake should be to inform the community about the state of the school’s facilities, its back-up supplies, its student and staff preparedness in the case of an earthquake, the role that the school will play in terms of providing shelter to those in need in the event of an earthquake, and the role that the school’s search and rescue team will play in the case of missing persons in the school going unaccounted for. This message can be communicated via letter, via email, via school meetings with the community, and via school newsletter publications.

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The agency that would work well to ensure the structural soundness of the school would be FEMA (2010), which has published several guidelines for schools to use to assess their structural soundness. Structural engineers can also be called in locally to provide a full inspection of the school’s structure. This step should be taken in conjunction with the utilization of FEMA recommended guidelines, which should be implemented as well.

The school facilities should be prepared and equipped to deal with potential earthquake damage, or if not damaged to serve the community in case of disaster. This means that all stakeholders in the school should first of all know the roles that are expected of them. As the school represents the community, its duties in the face of a communal disaster like an earthquake are to respond to the community’s needs. Students and staff should organize….....

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Latest APA Format (6th edition)

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"How To Prepare A School For An Earthquake" (2018, March 24) Retrieved May 14, 2024, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/prepare-school-earthquake-2167199

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"How To Prepare A School For An Earthquake" 24 March 2018. Web.14 May. 2024. <
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Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

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"How To Prepare A School For An Earthquake", 24 March 2018, Accessed.14 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/prepare-school-earthquake-2167199