Managing volunteers: FEMA's Urban Search and Rescue programme and interactions with unaffiliated responders in disaster response.

In the aftermath of disasters it is not uncommon for a large number of individuals, ranging from professional technical responders to untrained, albeit well meaning, volunteers, to converge on site of a disaster in order to offer to help victims or other responders. Because volunteers can be both a help and a hindrance in disaster response, they pose a paradox to professional responders at the scene. Through focus group interviews and in-depth structured interviews, this paper presents an extended example of how Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) task forces, a type of professional technical-responder organisation, interact with and utilise volunteers.

Hurricane Katrina and the healthcare infrastructure: A focus on disaster preparedness, response, and resiliency.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina provides a window of opportunity to address a frail and failing healthcare system. Katrina was the rare incident that disrupted the external systems supplying hospitals with key services and resources needed for the organizations to function; increased the number of patients, both present and expected, that required medical care; and affected directly the physical plants of the hospitals, challenging their functionality. Sorting through and gleaning useful lessons to increase the resilience of hospitals for this type of catastrophic incident will take time and will require system-wide public health planning and intervention.