Crisis Management: 9/11 Terror Attacks & Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant Accident

In actuality, the problem of terrorism and natural disasters become one of the major challenges for the effective emergency management and crisis prevention because both terror attacks and natural disasters have a devastating impact on society and the life of the average people. At this point, it is possible to refer to such notorious cases as 9/11 terror attacks and the Fukushima accident that occurred in 2011. In spite of considerable difference in time, scope and impact of each disaster, they have proved to be devastating for the US and Japanese society causing the enormous, negative impact, on the one hand and consolidating the nation, on the other. In fact, the crisis management in case of 9/11 terror attacks and Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant accident was different but both crises have a considerable impact on society and required considerable efforts not only from the part of emergency services but from the part of the entire nation to overcome negative effects of both crises.

In spite of obvious differences, both crises and their management were similar in a way.  First, both 9/11 and Fukushima have had a devastating impact on the entire nation and caused substantial psychological problems not only among victims and their family members but also among other people and enrolled he entire nation as the matter of fact (Dolfman & Wasser, 2004) Therefore, many people, who were not involved in each crisis directly, needed psychological aid. The emergence management team had to respond respectively in the US and Japan by providing the large scale psychological aid not only to victims of each crisis but also to other people, who needed the assistance of professional psychologists. In addition, the impact of media in both cases was very significant. At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that the detailed and extensive media coverage of each crisis contributed to the development of the negative psychological effect on the audience because people, who have not been involved in the crisis directly, suffered from the traumatic effect of each crisis under the impact of the extensive media coverage. In this regard, the emergency management team could not prevent the media involvement into highlighting each crisis (Fuerst, 2005). One more similarity of the two crisis was the experience of Americans and Japanese of suffering similar problems in the past. Americans have suffered terror attacks before, as was the case of Oklahoma bombing, for example, whereas Japanese have been still terrified by Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing at the end of World War II. Also each crisis has consolidated the nation in their attempt to confront the crisis and resolve it.

The intervention strategy, which could be used in case of 9/11 attacks, could be the empowering model of crisis intervention. This intervention strategy would first focus on the pre-intervention, which involves the assessment of actual and potential victims of terror attacks and determination of the strategy oriented on the elimination of negative effects of the crisis. The next step would involve complex measures oriented on the localization of the area under the impact of traumatic effects of the terror attacks. Then, the emergency management team should determine resources required for the emergency management. Finally, emergence services should focus on the prevention of reoccurrence of terror attacks and identification of new threats.

In this regard, Fukushima 1 intervention strategy could be similar but this strategy should be a hybrid intervention model, which involve the pre-intervention assessment with the immediate action that could involve the localization of the area and securing the area of the nuclear power plant and surrounding areas, which was also the case of 9/11 but if 9/11 emergency team responded a posteriori, them Fukushima 1 emergency team should respond in the course of the emergency to prevent its disastrous effects for thousands of people. In such a way, both intervention techniques would be oriented on securing the area under the impact. Another similarity of the hybrid intervention model to empowering intervention model concerns the enlargement of the scope of the emergency management operation. In fact, Fukushima 1 emergency management team focused on the expansion of the accident and contamination of the area.

 On the other hand, there were substantial differences in the response of the emergency management team to the crisis in the US and Japan. The US attempted to externalize the crisis and enhanced the domestic security policy to prevent new terror attacks. Instead, Japan rather internalized the crisis and stopped its nuclear power plants shortly after Fukushima 1 accident (Hasegawa, 2012). The US emergency team was less prepared to the crisis than Japanese one because Japanese emergency teams had regular trainings addressing nuclear power plant accidents, while the preparedness of Americans to confront terror attacks was apparently lower. Nevertheless, the US emergency team has managed to localize the crisis and provide the health care and psychological aid to victims of the terror attacks and local community members. In contrast, Japanese emergency team had to evacuate the population living in the nearby area close to Fukushima 1. Such resettlement aggravated the situation even more, but that was the only option to prevent numerous health problems and simply to save the life and health of the local population.

The empowering intervention strategy that could be applied by 9/11 emergency management team and the hybrid intervention strategy used by Fukushima 1 emergency team had substantial differences. In case of 9/11 intervention strategy, the emergency team would focus on securing Americans by tightening control over external threats and ways, which could have been used by terrorists. They would work closely with citizens to increase their awareness of the risk of terror attacks and engaged them into their prevention. In contrast, Fukushima 1 emergency team would have evacuated the population from the area under the impact to let the emergency team to work on the neutralization of negative effects of the accident. The evacuated population should be fully informed about the scope of the problem but it would be difficult to apply in the course of the implementation of the hybrid model because the emergency team should assess and respond to the accident immediately as the accident was still in progress, in contrast to the close work of American emergency services to prevent new terror attacks.

Thus, even though the devastating impact of 9/11 terror attacks and Fukushima 1 accident are still relevant, the response of the US and Japanese emergency team had to deal with numerous issues, which had both similarities and differences. Basically, each team has responded successfully and negative effects of each crisis fade away steadily.

References:

Dolfman, M.L. and Wasser, S. F. (2004). “9/11 and the New York City Economy”. Monthly Labor Review 127.

Fuerst, F. (September 7, 2005). “Exogenous Shocks and Real Estate Rental Markets: An Event Study of the 9/11 Attacks and their Impact on the New York Office Market”. Russell Sage Foundation.

Hasegawa, K. (2012). Facing Nuclear Risks: Lessons from the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 21(1), 84-91. 

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]
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