FEMA versus local governments: influence and reliance in disaster preparedness

Abstract

This study uses an experimental approach to examine whether disaster information sourced to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) influences intentions to adopt hazard adjustments. Survey questions are also used to determine whether individuals rely more on FEMA or local governments when preparing for disasters. Using an online sample of 2008 US employees, the results indicate that information sourced to FEMA is no more influential than information sourced to local governments and that individuals rely less on FEMA than on local agencies during disaster preparedness. These results have significant implications for practice and future research on natural hazard preparedness.

Sustainability and Disaster Planning: What Are the Connections?

“…This mirrors results from a previous national survey of U.S. local governments that found places with sustainability goals undertake more community‐oriented economic development actions than those without (Zhang, Warner, and Homsy ). Interestingly, although previous research has found that local governments and volunteers are perceived to be more directly responsibility for resiliency (Sadiq et al ; Singh‐Peterson et al ), our study found that such local motivations played no significant role in disaster planning.…”

“…The social and political capital in rural communities is one key to explaining differences in the level and willingness of communities to act (Flora and Flora ). Trust in resiliency information is higher when it comes from local agencies than from the federal government (Sadiq, Tharp, and Graham ) and, similarly, local volunteer responders are perceived as more prepared for disasters, despite their lack of resources and expertise (Singh‐Peterson et al ).…”

Exploring the Relationship between Hazard Adjustments and Risk Managers in Organizations

“…In addition, organization size has the biggest beta coefficient among all the independent variables. This robust finding is in line with the results of myriad studies on hazard adjustments (Quarantelli et al., ; Sadiq, ; Sadiq et al., ). The reason for this result, according to researchers is that larger organizations have more resources than smaller organizations that they can devote to the adoption of hazard adjustments (Dahlhamer et al., ; Mileti et al., ; Tierney, ).…”

Trust in Emergency Management Authorities and Individual Emergency Preparedness for Tornadoes

“…This is because, though the role of FEMA is somewhat limited to the distribution of funding to state and local governments, both FEMA and local governments are the primary authoritative organizations in emergency management. Furthermore, they are the major sources for information regarding emergency preparedness (Basolo et al, 2009;Sadiq et al, 2016).…”

“…Although the role of FEMA is somewhat limited to the distribution of funding to state and local governments, both FEMA and local governments are the primary authoritative organizations in emergency management. Furthermore, they are the primary sources of information regarding emergency preparedness (Basolo et al, 2009;Sadiq, Tharp, & Graham, 2016). Therefore, this article claims that, in addition to local government as a major actor in emergency management (Basolo et al, 2009), it is important to investigate individual trust in FEMA and its effect in shaping individuals' levels of emergency preparedness.…”