National Disaster Preparedness in Australia – before and after 9/11

Abstract

Throughout history, certain major events or disasters have served as “focusing events”, leading to the development of new legislation, policy, planning, and practices.1,2 While many of these events have led to significant changes in terms of planning, preparedness, and consequence management (of particular note are the changes to preparedness and response in Israel and the Middle East following warfare and conflict), one event was the ultimate “focusing-event”, with no other event bringing about changes of a comparable scope or scale.3 On the 11th of September, 2001, the world watched as four hijacked commercial airliners were crashed into the World Trade Centre Buildings in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington DC, and a rural field in Pennsylvania. The attacks resulted in the deaths of an estimated 3124 people,4 409 of whom were emergency service personnel.5 The events that occurred that day resulted in unprecedented changes to public health and disaster preparedness systems, not only in the US, but worldwide. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) define disaster preparedness as “measures taken to prepare for, and reduce the effects of disasters”.6 This definition further states that disaster preparedness is designed to predict – and where possible – prevent disasters, mitigate their impact on vulnerable populations, and respond to and effectively cope with their consequences. Furthermore, giving due acknowledgement to the broad disciplinary basis of the field, disaster preparedness should be viewed as a “goal” rather than a specialised program or distinct “activity”. 6