Volunteer work can make a difference to those harmed by natural, technological, and human-induced disasters if it is done well. Disaster Volunteers provides readers with information on why people volunteer, the benefits gained by volunteers and recipients, and how to leverage such good will. Learning from a variety of past disasters, readers will gain realistic insights into the challenges of disaster contexts. Equipped with evidence-based best practices, Dr. Phillips organizes and illustrates necessary steps to recruit, train, manage, reward, and retain volunteers throughout the life cycle of disasters. This important resource walks both organizations and individuals through the entire process of volunteer engagement from recruiting and training to managing as well as rewarding and retaining volunteers and provides an engaging and informative set of useful and evidence-based chapters. Disaster Volunteers fills an existing gap in books on volunteer disaster management by incorporating research, generating sound recommendations, grounding ideas in a disaster context, and offering an inviting set of examples from which readers can learn.

David Campbell's personal and professional life changed course in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004. A chance remark to a friend about the tragedy led his companion to reveal that he had dined, just a week prior to the tsunami, on a hotel patio where everyone had been killed. "In that moment," Campbell remembers, "a faraway event was brought much closer." That meeting launched Campbell into action. After researching travel and lodging, he packed everything he thought he would need in a major disaster zone and boarded a plane to Thailand. But his most important asset was his vast network of friends in the technology industry and his decades of experience in businesses management. His colleagues and friends wanted to help and he wanted to help them do it. Campbell didn't realize it at the time but he had stumbled on the key elements of what would become All Hands Volunteers, an entirely new kind of disaster relief organization: his own credibility, creative use of the Internet to make connections, and most importantly, the immeasurable power of "being there." ALL HANDS: THE EVOLUTION OF A VOLUNTEER-POWERED DISASTER RESPONSE ORGANIZATION shares the story of how, over the past ten years, Campbell and thousands of dedicated volunteers have personally and profoundly impacted the lives of people reeling in the wake of natural disaster.

Disasters such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina illustrate the salience and complexity of disasters. Both scholars and practitioners therefore agree that we must take a more proactive and holistic approach to emergency management, which should logically be derived from a sound understanding of the academic literature and the most pressing concerns facing professionals in the field today. Disciplines, Disasters and Emergency Management reviews what is known about catastrophic events from the standpoint of various academic areas of study. The introdu.

The Fukushima and Tohoku Disaster: A Review of the Five-Year Reconstruction Efforts covers the outcome of the response, five years later, to the disasters associated with the Great East Japan earthquake on March 11, 2011. The 3.11 disaster, as it is referred to in Japan, was a complex accident, the likes of which humans had never faced before. This book evaluates the actions taken during and after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident, for which the Japanese government and people were not prepared. The book also provides recommendations for preparing and responding to disasters for those working and living in disaster-prone areas, making it a vital resource for disaster managers and government agencies. - Includes guidelines for governments, communities and businesses in areas where similar complex disasters are likely to occur - Provides information, propositions, suggestions and advice from the people that were involved in making suggestions to the Japanese government - Features case studies (both pre- and post-disaster) of three simultaneous disasters: the Great East Japan earthquake, the resulting tsunami, and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster

While history has identified a need for improved coordination during emergencies, it has also demonstrated that community volunteers positively impact their neighborhoods during times of crisis. Laying out the rationale and process by which emergency managers, community leaders, and non-governmental aid organizations can effectively collaborate and integrate citizen response, Spontaneous Community Volunteers in Disasters explains how to engage, train, and utilize spontaneous unaffiliated community volunteers (SUCV). The book prepares leaders to integrate local volunteers into any scale emergency response. Protocols and flexible management solutions are outlined to ensure safe and effective planning and execution. Work templates provided can be modified to suit the needs of any community. This accessible manual provides the tools to: Assess your agency’s role, tasks, and challenges to meet community needs in a disaster Build a plan for managing SUCVs by developing internal and external protocols Develop effective spot screening and selection methods Engage community members in information-sharing and outreach campaigns Consider policies and procedures that create relevant roles for volunteers and community groups to build a resilient team for disaster recovery Provide National Incident Management System (NIMS) compliant answers to address common barriers to using SUCVs Combining field experience and psychosocial research, the book makes a strong case as to why community involvement in disaster response will have a positive impact on a community’s resilient recovery. Praise for Spontaneous Community Volunteers in Disasters: All emergency management coordinators can benefit from this book. —Howard Butt, New Jersey State Police, State CERT Coordinator Lisa Orloff has done an excellent job in both identifying a significant opportunity in emergency response and meticulously outlining how that opportunity can best be leveraged. —Dr. Michael Chumer, New Jersey Institute of Technology The Alliance for Nonprofit Management has nominated the book for the Terry McAdam Award. This award is bestowed upon the Committee's choice for the most inspirational and useful new book published for the nonprofit sector.

This timely Handbook is based on the principle that disasters are social constructions and focuses on social science disaster research. It provides an interdisciplinary approach to disasters with theoretical, methodological, and practical applications. Attention is given to conceptual issues dealing with the concept "disaster" and to methodological issues relating to research on disasters. These include Geographic Information Systems as a useful research tool and its implications for future research. This seminal work is the first interdisciplinary collection of disaster research as it stands now while outlining how the field will continue to grow.

Hazards, Risks, and Disasters in Society provides analyses of environmentally related catastrophes within society in historical, political and economic contexts. Personal and corporate culture mediates how people may become more vulnerable or resilient to hazard exposure. Societies that strengthen themselves, or are strengthened, mitigate decline and resultant further exposure to what are largely human induced risks of environmental, social and economic degradation. This book outlines why it is important to explore in more depth the relationships between environmental hazards, risk and disasters in society. It presents challenges presented by mainstream and non-mainstream approaches to the human side of disaster studies. By hazard categories this book includes critical processes and outcomes that significantly disrupt human wellbeing over brief or long time-frames. Whilst hazards, risks and disasters impact society, individuals, groups, institutions and organisations offset the effects by becoming strong, healthy, resilient, caring and creative. Innovations can arise from social organisation in times of crisis. This volume includes much of use to practitioners and policy makers needing to address both prevention and response activities. Notably, as people better engage prevalent hazards and risks they exercise a process that has become known as disaster risk reduction (DRR). In a context of climatic risks this is also indicative of climate change adaptation (CCA). Ultimately it represents the quest for development of sustainable environmental and societal futures. Throughout the book cases studies are derived from the world of hazards risks and disasters in society. - Includes sections on prevention of and response to hazards, risks and disasters - Provides case studies of prominent societal challenges of hazards, risks and disasters - Innovative approaches to dealing with disaster drawing from multiple disciplines and sectors