Читать книгу Disaster Response and Recovery - David A. McEntire - Страница 21

As an emergency manager who may be involved in disaster response and recovery operations, you must understand the nature of hazards if you are to be successful with your assigned responsibilities. As discussed earlier, a hazard is a physical, technological, or anthropogenic agent such as an earthquake, a chemical release or a violent act. These hazards and their resulting disasters occur in the United States and around the world. Floods, tornadoes and earthquakes occur, leaving buildings in rubble and other property damage. Vehicles collide due to careless drivers or in conjunction with poor weather conditions. Trains derail due to a failure of the tracks or human error by the engineer. Petrochemical facilities contain large amounts of hazardous materials, which sometimes leads to an explosion at the industrial complex. Terrorists detonate improvised explosive devices, producing carnage and fear in their wake. Hazards occur for many different reasons. Some hazards occur naturally in the environment, while others are the result of human activity, neglect of safety precautions, careless mistakes or malicious intent.