The Role of County Emergency Managers in Disaster Recovery

By

Mariama Yakubu

Brian Thomas

Sarah Bundy

Jessica Jensen

The Role of the County Emergency Manager in Disaster Recovery

Presented by: Sarah Bundy

Based on research by: Jessica Jensen, Sarah Bundy, Brian Thomas, and Mariama Yakubu

FEMA Higher Education Conference, June 4-7, 2012

Research Motivations Comprehensive Emergency Management (CEM)

Approach National Governor’s Association (1979) Principles of Emergency Management (2007)

Historic Preparedness and Response Bias Practice Research

Research QuestionWhat is the current role of the county

emergency manager in disaster recovery?

Literature Review Definition and goals of recovery

Tasks in recovery Short-term Long-term

Recovery context

Emergency manager role

Methodology Purposive and convenience sampling

Semi-structured telephone interviews

54 county emergency managers

11 states represented

Two stepped coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) Open coding Axial coding

Limitations Exploratory research

Response rate and potential non-response bias

Findings Unclear, minimal recovery roles

Generic terms Support role Limited involvement

Possible explanations Discounted explanations Ambiguity of definitions Local expectations and dependence Navigating FEMA Importance of response

Discussion Distributed function

Role aligned with other phases, tasks unclear

Areas in control of emergency managers

Importance of training and education

Meaning for CEM

Future directions for research