Governments are charged with protecting
their citizens from disaster, but it's businesses in the emergency-management
industry that provide much of the tools for the job. With the ramping
up of security protocols, infrastructure reinforcement and information
technology, pools of money are being spread around by various levels
of government.
All of a sudden, companies that had catered to a niche market
possess growing portfolios of clients in the public and private
sectors. With such workloads come many positions to fill.
A recent report in the New York Times cited numbers from
the U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics that estimate a need for
14,000 emergency-management specialists by 2012, which would
mean an increase of nearly 3,000 positions in 10 years. There's
also a growth in training courses for the field, with more
than 200 higher education programs projected to be in place
by the end of the decade. Fifteen years ago, the number of
degree programs focused on the industry was next to none.
"Disaster is a growth business," B. Wayne Blanchard
of FEMA told the Times. "I have never heard anyone speculate
that they think disaster losses will start going down in
the near, mid- or far distant future."
That train of thought is exemplified in New York City, where
disaster has been on everyone's mind, for obvious reasons.
It's not just the fear of terrorist attacks that has people
on guard, however. When Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out
the city's plan to deal with hurricanes, he made it clear
security threats from Mother Nature are as potentially dangerous
as those from any other force.
New York is among the American cities most vulnerable to
a catastrophic hurricane, according to severe-weather experts,
and Bloomberg's plan, unveiled in 2006, calls for the addition
of 42 evacuation centers, the zoning of color-coded evacuation
routes, and distribution of multi-lingual pamphlets to inform
citizens on how to react in an extreme crisis. In preparing
for the possible evacuation of 3 million people, $30 million
will be spent by the city. There is also federal and state
funding, including a portion of the $550 million set aside
to help hospitals and nursing homes improve their emergency
preparedness. Should New York be hit by a disaster, an evacuation
would stress all of the Empire State, if not the nation.
"We're trying to play out doomsday scenarios and work
backward in terms of anticipating," state assemblyman
George Latimore recently said at a meeting of concerned citizens
in upstate New York.
According to published reports, the key focus has been on
developing adequate evacuation plans, getting facilities
to enter into agreements to receive patients, and purchasing
equipment and supplies. The new government initiatives in
New York and elsewhere have made emergency preparation a
big, booming and intriguing business across the country.
Take the case of North Carolina-based Spevco, for example.
Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the company was designing large
trailers mostly for use by car-racing marketers. But after
the worst storm in the history of the United States hit the
Gulf Coast, Spevco was pressed into creating a very different
kind of machine. It received an order from FEMA for emergency-medical
trailers supplied with an operating room and hospital beds.
The company reportedly was working around the clock to fulfill
the order and has continued to produce mobile disaster-response
vehicles. While Spevco's foray into the emergency-services
business was unexpected, Global Security Group has positioned
itself at the cutting edge of the industry.
The company has introduced an electronic notification system
that it says will help "account for people during a
critical incident." The tool allows for messages to
be sent and received by a centralized network, which means
people can be located quickly during a chaotic event, Global
Security Group says. It is an example of a growing trend
in the business of emergency preparation. As governments
and communities plan for the worst, businesses will find
themselves in a position to not only increase profits but
help save lives.
|
