Disaster Declaration

The emergency management profession has a saying: “All disasters are local.” Although this is accurate for those experiencing the effects of an incident, it does not account for the political process involved in having an incident be declared a “disaster.” Only the president of the United States can invoke that status over a national incident. A complex formal process has to take place involving local, tribal, state, and regional emergency management in order to get that language assigned. When the president declares a disaster, another formal process begins to implement a prescribed campaign to assist in disaster response and recovery operations outlined in the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Code of Federal Regulations, Title 42 The Public Health and Welfare, Chapter 68, Disaster Relief).

The process of disaster declaration begins at the incident. An incident is a risk that has escalated to a crisis and impacts human populations. These risks may be natural (e.g., earthquake, flood, hurricane, tornado, volcano eruption). These risks may be technological (e.g., cyber attack, terrorism, oil spill). Whatever the type of risk may be, it has intersected with human populations and affected their world.

When the incident begins, the operational response is at the local level through first responders: local fire, law enforcement, and emergency medical personnel. If a disaster response plan exists in the jurisdiction, it is activated at the time of the incident. Local governments often have a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in place with neighboring towns, cities, counties, or regional organizations to assist with these efforts. The MOU assumes that resources named in the memo will be used if available. If both partners in the memo are responding to a similar incident in each jurisdiction, response capabilities remain at their place of origin.

An emergency management department may coordinate local response efforts. These are staffed by professional personnel who work full-time on readiness, response, and recovery programs associated with emergencies and disasters. However, many local governments do not have a dedicated program for this function. Those duties may be assigned to a city manager, mayor, or volunteer coordinator; some local governments may not have an emergency management contact at all. In such cases, local law enforcement coordinates emergency management activities. Whoever is responsible for managing the incident is also the point of contact with state emergency management personnel and is responsible for situation reports, requests for assistance, or activating an MOU. Local facilities for record-keeping about response activities is where data are generated to support the need for a disaster declaration.

When an incident is managed through local response efforts, no formal disaster declaration is issued. If the incident is too extensive to handle locally, officials at the local level request assistance from the governor of the state. This is the next step in the disaster declaration process.

The governor of a state has a variety of operational resource capabilities available to aid local [Page 272]jurisdictions. He or she may activate the state emergency operations center (EOC) to coordinate available state assistance. Depending on the size and scope and impact of the incident, the EOC may be partially or fully activated. If enough local response organizations have requested assistance and it becomes necessary, the governor may proclaim a state of emergency. A series of specific steps must be followed for this process to be legal. These differ from state to state, but most require situational assessment that shows how many jurisdictions were impacted, the potential for other areas to be impacted, and an assessment of life-supporting and critical infrastructure resources that are needed.

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