The response phase of the disaster life cycle revisited

It is generally agreed that the nature of modern disasters has noticeably changed over recent years. Disasters are not only increasing in number, but also they are similarly qualitatively different and seem to distress humanity to a considerably higher extent than in the past. This does not only deeply affect modern societies; further, it might have a disruptive impact on the intervening emergency management organizations as well. The classical disaster management theory elaborated during the second half of the last century and essentially based upon best practices and lessons learned, might not suffice anymore to deal with modern disasters which are structurally different. When the context changes, the ruling theories and practices become out-of-date and need to be revisited as we have witnessed during recent events such as the Southeast Asia Tsunami (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), and more recently the Haitian earthquake (2010). The goal of this contribution, based on a qualitative study of interviews with experienced emergency workers and emergency managers, is to re-explore the response phase of the disaster management cycle in order to better understand the challenge of unconventional situations and to develop an appropriate approach to deal with them in a more efficient and effective way.