Assignment Instructions

Essay One: Write a clear and well thought out essay on the following problem: “Your County Manager has just gone to a federally sponsored program on getting volunteers to support the management and administrative side of disaster and recovery portions of emergency management. The Manager attended a seminar on a program called ‘Professional Volunteer Disaster Survey Team (PRO-V-DST)’ which had been developed in Texas in the mid-1990’s. She was quite enthusiastic about the program as it provides a network of professional building inspectors, structural engineers, and architects who form damage survey teams that could be used by State and local governments in need of help surveying damage and evaluating structures following a disaster. In assessing post disaster flood damage to structures in one county, PRO-V-DST impressed the county engineer of that county engineer, who had been overwhelmed by the number of structures requiring a determination of substantial damage, by completing its evaluation in just 2 days. The last tornado your county suffered took weeks to get the survey done and then some of it had to be done over. The County Manager was sold on this program because it would provide professional damage survey resources at what appears to be no expenses as the teams provide volunteer labor, and FEMA provides the funding for meals, lodging, and travel expenses.

• What difficulties would you have to overcome in implementing a similar program in your county?
• Would this program really be an asset?
• How would you handle the County Manager?”

TECHNICAL GUIDANCE:

• Your answers should be approximately 3-5 pages total for the body of your work (the Title Page and References page will be additional pages).
• Type in Times New Roman, 12 point and double space. Please have the question and then answer the question below the question. At the end of your work, include a reference page noting your references for all five questions.  Yes, I know this is not the APA standard, but for this test it is easier for me to grade…
• Students will follow the APA 6 Style as the sole citation and reference style used in written work submitted as part of coursework.
• Use at least 2 scholarly or other relevant sources.
• Points will be deducted for the use of Wikipedia or encyclopedic type sources. It is highly advised to utilize: books, peer reviewed journals, articles, archived documents, etc. (may be electronic of course and the APA manual lists all the types of possible resources and reference formats, hint…hint), and valid web sites (use caution with these).
• Save your work as a Microsoft Word document.