Book Review: Urban Emergency Management
Urban Emergency Management: Planning and Response for the 21st Century. By Thomas Henkey. Butterworth-Heinemann;Elsevier.com; 260 pages; $99.95.
Author Thomas Henkey provides an excellent review of the fundamental concepts of emergency management in Urban Emergency Management: Planning and Response for the 21st Century. The book contends that emergency management is constantly changing and there is no one approach to fit all emergencies.
Using the five phases of emergency management—prevention, preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery—as a starting point, the author balances the discussion of academic and operational approaches by applying them to real-world events.
The author is quick to point out that emergency management in urban areas is a topic that has not yet been fully explored. One key to effective urban emergency response is the ability for responder organizations to be able to communicate with one another, however, the topic of interoperability among tri-service agencies is not discussed in detail.
Henkey has done a great job in bringing current information on urban emergency management into a single publication. It is a good source of review for all emergency management practitioners and offers a thoughtful analysis of emergency management techniques as applied to recent events.
Reviewer: Dan McArthur has more than 30 years of experience in the nuclear industry and serves as senior strategist at Bruce Power, where he focuses on emergency management policy.
