My community is the city of Portsmouth in Virginia, and a potential natural disaster likely to affect the area is flooding. Information from the Portsmouth Virginia Department of Emergency Management (2021) shows that hurricane season starts in June and ends in November. Still, the peak point for this calamity is between August and October (Council et al., 2018). Coastal communities such as Portsmouth face the risk of powerful storms that cause an abnormal rise in water levels in the oceans. When hurricanes make landfall, they create a significant water push onto the shore. Elevation and proximity of beaches enable storms to travel far inland in the Portsmouth community, creating massive destruction. Nearly every year, when it rains or during hurricanes, floodwaters are a threat. Portsmouth community faces immediate health impacts from flooding, including injuries, hypothermia, animal bites, drowning, and waterborne illnesses (Council et al., 2018). Other associated risks include loss of health workers, destruction of health infrastructure such as drug supplies, and patient evacuation. Council et al. (2018) inform that, commonly, floods increase the likelihood of waterborne disease transmissions such as typhoid fever, hepatitis A or E, and cholera. Some vector-borne diseases such as malaria, West Nile fever, and dengue can affect community members.
The risk of waterborne disease infections is high, and they can be acquired through direct contact with contaminated waters. Although some illnesses such as throat infection, dermatitis, and wound infections are not a threat, they pose significant harm to people along with other severe risk factors. Flooding is associated with contamination of drinking water, which leads to serious diseases like typhoid. Prone infections are directly transmissible by bacteria when skin gets in contact with contaminated water. During the disaster, the Portsmouth community needs to watch poor hygiene as it is a major cause of disease outbreaks.
The Nursing Response
The first action of a response plan is to initiate warnings for potential flood events to the community. The Environmental Agency (EA) is responsible for managing and warning of possible flooding from severe weather while providing daily guidance statements. Daily updates or guidance on floods are issued by the Flood Forecasting Center (FFC) (Portsmouth Virginia Department of Emergency Management, 2021). Warning services are issued by the EA, which split floodplain in Portsmouth into warning areas with respect to risk or level of defense. The EA department uses key flood codes to notify the level of risk.
Most flood events take place on a small scale and can be dealt with by local authorities, emergency service centers, and other agencies within the response plan. When the actual impact of flooding is severe, emergency services must contact support from various response teams. An example of external assistance contacted includes diversions, evacuation measures, and road closure. Public warning and alert messages are issued to community members upon identification of the threat. The level of disaster response requires coordinated efforts using Portsmouth multi-agency flood plan.
Preventive actions are necessary to avoid the occurrence or escalation of risks during the flooding event. In Portsmouth’s community response plan, prevention measures include floodgate operations, closing shoreline roads, distributing sandbags as stand-by, informing the public, and protecting critical infrastructures such as electricity and communication lines. During actual flooding, actions taken are gulley pumping, road closures, establishing emergency helpline services, opening flood response rooms or centers, evacuating, and implementing business continuity plans. The key priority for action is paid to people, houses, roads, commercial property, and infrastructures.
Based on local website evaluation, the level of intervention on flooding in the city of Portsmouth is maintained through a proper reporting system (Portsmouth Virginia Department of Emergency Management, 2021). During flood response practices, the emergency department in the community structure procedures for use by the city council and establish twenty-four hours call out details. Communication flow is maintained to alert various response teams and residents of warnings (Portsmouth Virginia Department of Emergency Management, 2021). Nurses play a crucial role during a natural disaster such as flooding, as they help victims prevent and manage illnesses resulting from the incidents. The professional do this by educating the community about waterborne diseases and how to reach care upon symptoms onset. Also, the fundamental attribute of nurses is to give care to the injured, help individuals and their families to manage physical or emotional issues.
Evidence-based practice guidelines pinpoint key issues concerning sustainable prevention, protection, and mitigation of flooding from literature work (Behr et al., 2016). Specific guidelines include identifying the nature of the risk, building a community response team, making vital information accessible to people, updating and alerting on procedures. Natural events continue to exist, and human interference must be prevented. Assessment of community needs must incorporate existing knowledge about floods or community members and should be flexible. From a nursing perspective, community needs are essential to give an overview of how to better respond in a disaster outbreak. While much attention is paid to most likely diseases that are waterborne related during floods, studies point that mental health consequences are an area worth considering. For example, post-traumatic stress disorder can affect community members, and these health issues should be incorporated into the recovery plan. The risks of suicides after natural disasters like flooding is high due to depression from loss experienced.
Community Preparedness
Portsmouth has experienced storms and flooding, and instead of focusing on how to respond to the events, the community should focus on improving drainage systems. Hurricanes are recurrent natural events: hence, there is a need to ensure sufficient equipment types to lessen impacts. Also, it can be concluded that the community’s preparedness for flood calamity is not enough because health issues are not well addressed. Disease surveillance is essential and must be included in the plan to detect changing patterns of common illnesses or other outbreaks. The probability of epidemics when a population is displaced is high aid interruption to healthcare systems. Long-term health impacts such as mental illnesses should be considered in the plan as victims suffer a severe loss that might induce stress, panic, or anxiety. Disaster occurrence impact challenges, some of which are predictable, while others can be difficult to perceive. As such, the Portsmouth community preparedness plan requires regular updates.
References
Behr, J. G., Diaz, R., & Mitchell, M. (2016). Building resiliency in response to sea-level rise and recurrent flooding: Comprehensive planning in Hampton roads. The Virginia News Letter, 92(1), 1-7. Web.
Council, D., Covi, M., Yusuf, W., Behr, J., Brown, M., & Grant, V. S. (2018). The ‘new normal’ of flooding in Portsmouth, Virginia: Perspectives, experiences, and adaptive Responses of Residents and Business Owners in Low to Moderate-Income Communities [PDF document], 1-26. Web.
Portsmouth Virginia Department of Emergency Management (2021). Flood Emergency preparedness.The City of Portsmouthva.gov. Web.