Emergency Management Hazard Identification

Hazards take many forms.  They may have small localized impacts or more widespread, regional impacts.  GOHSEP identifies the hazards that are most likely to occur, estimates how much of an impact they will have on a community and state, and through cooperation with local, state, and federal governments, ascertains the gaps in hazard mitigation.  These gaps are what GOHSEP wants to minimize, which in turn will lessen the impact on communities or prevent the hazard from occurring at all.

The first step in the process is to conduct a hazard threat assessment.  This takes place on the local and state level.  Communication between both groups during this step is important as most hazards tend to overlap their effects.  Once the hazards have been identified on the state and local level, this information is corresponded to federal level emergency managers so that response can be synced.

Within GOHSEP, the hazards we classify may cover both natural and manmade disasters but their identification is uniform across the entire agency and it's divisions.  Departments such as Critical Infrastructure, Preparedness, and Hazard Mitigation, all cooperate to form a cohesive list of hazards we all focus our efforts and resources on to abate.

GOHSEP Identified Hazard Categories

 

Once hazards are identified, all divisions of GOHSEP work within their areas of subject matter expertise to attempt to prevent the hazard from occurring, mitigate it's affect, and/or recover from the damage inflicted.  The process is a cycle that never stops as we must remain vigilant protecting life, property, and infrastructure.  More resources regarding hazards and GOHSEP can be found on our publications page.