Write a minimum of 1500 word paper discussing how effective and ineffective interagency organizations (including local, state, federal, and volunteers responded to the following disasters:

The attacks of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Deepwater Horizon. Include what lessons were learned and how emergency management has changed its preparations, mitigations, and recovery for the next disaster. Include the consequences if not changing based on lessons learned moving forward.

Initial Post:

Explore the forces of change as predicted by FEMA in social and technological drivers, environmental drivers, and economic and political drivers.

• In your opinion, which regulatory driver will be the most influential within our national emergency management system?
• Which will be the most important or influential within your own community’s emergency management posture?
• My community is Vinton, VA in Roanoke County

Justify your selection with additional research and examples.

Response Posts

In your response posts, agree with your peers’ selection by building upon their points or challenge their selection and provide reasoning for the disagreement.

Support your initial posts and response posts with scholarly sources cited in APA style.

Post 1:

Hello Class,

Happy week 2! FEMA’s Strategic Foresight Initiative breaks drivers of change into five categories: social, technological, economic, environmental, and political (FEMA, 2024). Social drivers include aging populations and urbanization. Technological drivers cut both waysbetter early warning systems, but also cyber vulnerabilities that can cripple emergency communications. Economic and political drivers control funding flows through programs like the Disaster Recovery Reform Act, though federal priorities shift constantly.

For the most influential driver nationally, I see environmental as the clear front-runner. Climate change acts as a threat multiplier that touches everything elsestorms stress budgets, displace populations, and force infrastructure upgrades whether jurisdictions are ready or not. Florida took four named storms in 2024 with damages over $38 billion, and the intelligence community now explicitly ties climate consequences to national security risk (ODNI, 2024). Locally in Florida, environmental drivers dominate even more given the state holds 35% of all National Flood Insurance Program policies in the country (Florida Policy Institute, 2025). But the real leverage point sits where environmental pressure meets economic regulation. Research cited by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (2019) shows each dollar invested in pre-disaster resilience saves $13 in recovery costs. That makes mitigation funding the mechanism that actually converts awareness into capability on the ground.

Brett

References

FEMA. (2024). Strategic Foresight 2050. U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Florida Policy Institute. (2025). When the next storm hits, will Florida be left on its own?

Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (2024). 2024 annual threat assessment of the U.S. intelligence community.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (2019). The economic benefits of investing in resilient infrastructure.

Post 2:

Hi everyone,

Emergency management continues to change as communities face new risks, expectations, and resource challenges. FEMA and other organizations point to social and technological shifts, environmental pressures, and economic and political realities as major forces shaping the future of the profession. All of these affect how agencies plan, train, and invest before disasters happen.

Looking at the national system, I think the biggest regulatory influence is the Stafford Act because it determines how federal assistance is requested and delivered. Since funding, reimbursement, and mitigation programs depend on that declaration process, it directly influences how states and local governments prepare. Communities build plans and capabilities knowing how federal support will be triggered and what requirements must be met (FEMA, n.d.). In that sense, the law drives preparedness long before an incident ever occurs.

At the community level, environmental change stands out the most to me. Weather events are becoming more frequent and more complicated. Even storms that might once have been routine can now lead to power outages, road closures, medical emergencies, and longer recovery times. Research looking at disaster resilience over the next decade suggests that climate and infrastructure stress will continue to magnify impacts, especially when systems depend on one another (UNDRR, 2022). From what I see in day-to-day operations, planning has to account for those ripple effects.

Technology is also raising the bar. The public expects quicker information, better coordination, and faster recovery. FEMAs mitigation reporting shows continued investment in projects meant to reduce future losses, which reflects a broader push toward resilience instead of just response (FEMA, 2025).

Overall, federal legislation shapes how the national system functions, while environmental pressures are increasingly defining what preparedness looks like locally. Understanding these drivers helps explain why emergency management must keep adapting.

References-

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (n.d.). Robert T. Stafford Disaster relief and emergency assistance act. https://www.fema.gov/disaster/stafford-act

Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2025). Hazard mitigation assistance division year in review.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. (2022). Crisis response and disaster resilience 2030: Forging strategic action in an age of uncertainty.

see the document for the full instructions and rubric

Midterm Project

OVERVIEW

For your midterm project, which is worth 30 percent of your total grade, you will prepare a paper on VaR (value at risk). The requirements for your paper are described below.

REQUIREMENTS

Include the following elements in your midterm project.

The body of your paper, not including a title page and any reference/citation pages, should be between 3000 and 3750 words. With a typical font and double spacing, this will be approximately 12 to 15 pages.

After each element below is a suggested length in pages. These suggestions are meant to help you plan your project. They are not required lengths for individual parts.

1. Provide a description of VaR and information on its origins and history. [12]
2. Discuss the three primary measures of VaR, including the variance/covariance method, historical simulation, and Monte Carlo simulation. [56]
3. Compare and contrast the methods in terms of the accuracy and reliability of the VaR estimates obtained.
4. Discuss the pros and cons of each method.
5. Discuss and evaluate at least three criticisms of VaR as a risk measure. [23]
6. Analyze at least two variations/modifications of VaR. [2]
7. Provide sample calculations using the variance/covariance and historical simulation methods. [12]
8. Conclusion. Tie your paper together with a brief conclusion. [up to 1]

Your paper should conform to APA style in terms of in-text citations and the list of works cited. It should display a clear style and proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. It should discuss course concepts coherently and competently.

GRADING CRITERIA

The course site includes a link to the rubric that will be used to grade your paper.

WRITING AND RESEARCH RESOURCES

The following links provide online writing and research aids to help you with your paper assignments.

• [Online Writing Lab] at Purdue University
• , the Writing Center at the University of WisconsinMadison
• (an online guide from the New Jersey State Library to assist you in starting your research, searching databases for articles, citing sources, using ILLiad to request books or articles, etc.]

Below are the instructions of the assignment below. I only need the discussion post itself to be 1 page long and also not have sources from journal entries or blogs. The other page Im paying for is for the two responses to other classmates discussions that are half a page long. Here are the links that they want you to read through.

Final Research Assignment: 370 Points

DUE DATE: March 15

Draft a ten-page (double-spaced) paper (300 earned points), using your own words, AND a ten-slide PowerPoint presentation (70 earned points) about one (1) WMD incident that occurred anywhere in the world. Half of the paper is on the incident itself, and half of the paper is your assessment, supported by citations, of the incident response. What went well and what went poorly that saved lives or cost lives? Also, discuss lessons learned for future incidents.

I DO NOT approve of students topics. I am confidant students can submit an assignment fully compliant with the requirements.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) sources are prohibited: Red Light (STOP NO IA

ASSISTANCE ALLOWED): The assignments in this class have been designed to

challenge you to develop creativity, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills. Using

AI technology will limit your capacity to develop these skills and to meet the learning

goals of this course

Causes of the Civil War

The goal of this assignment is to analyze an event, in relation to the Antebellum period of the United States, that you feel directly led to the Civil War of the 1860s. This will help you develop a deeper understanding of the concepts discussed throughout our course and encourage critical thinking.

You will create an essay that is at least three pages in length, not counting the title and reference pages. Use a minimum of three peer-reviewed or academic resources, two of which must come from the CSU Online Library.

For more than 160 years, historians have painstakingly searched for the one factor that caused the American Civil War; the event that caused disunion to turn to war. The search is so intense that the American Civil War is one of the most researched events in the history of the United States. Throughout Unit VII, we have learned about various events and variables that could be identified as a factor that has set the United States on a path toward the American Civil War.

Throughout Unit VII, we have learned about various events and variables that could be identified as factors that set the United States on a path toward the American Civil War.

Select one event from the list below:

• The Compromise of 1850
• The Kansas-Nebraska Act
• Presidential Election of 1856
• Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
• The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry
• Presidential Election of 1860

Then, write a scholarly paper in which you accomplish the following:

• Provide insightful and a thorough analysis of the event.
• Explain why you believe this single event caused such intense disunion within the United States that the country was placed on a trajectory toward the American Civil War.
• Discuss how the connections between social, political, and economic dynamics may have played a role in the event.
• Clearly describe how the event served as a catalyst for the American Civil War.

Recommendations for Success:

• Do not begin to work on the Unit VII Assignment until you have read (in full) the Unit VII Study Guide and read/viewed the assigned Required Unit Resources.
• After you have read/reviewed the Unit VII material, carefully review the Unit VII rubric so that you are aware of how your work will be evaluated.
• Present insightful and thorough analysis with strong arguments and evidence; dive into the details to help present strong content. Remember to incorporate the five Ws of research into your writing: who, what, where, when, and why.
• Take the time to review the CSU Online Library, Writing Center, and APA resources provided below. Reach out to the CSU librarians if you have questions about the library or locating resources. Contact the Writing Center if you would like help mastering APA Style, organization, or other writing skills.

Recommended electronic databases to use:

• America: History and Life
• JSTOR
• Academic Search Ultimate
• If you have questions about the assignment, contact your course instructor or professor.

The following resources may help you with this assignment.

CSU Online Library:

Writing Center:

APA:

Assignment — Research Project – Part 2

Look at the website and social media accounts of an ongoing union campaign. Submit a short paragraph (100 words) summarizing the current state of the campaign. What are the broad issues at stake? How is the union organizing? What, if any are the next steps?

If you can’t find a campaign you are keen on following you can look at the effort to organize Starbucks.

Starbucks Workers United: https://sbworkersunited.org/, https://twitter.com/SBWorkersUnited (@SBWorkersUnited), https://www.instagram.com/sbworkersunited (@SBWorkersUnited), https://www.tiktok.com/@sbworkersunited

Analyze, discuss, and apply the following:

• the relationship between the local response, the state response, and the federal response to a disaster to include the presidential disaster declaration system and the Stafford Act
• FEMA’s Individual Assistance and Public Assistance for programs for recovery
• Community Capacity Building for recovery
• the purpose of disaster communication and it’s assumptions
• the elements of an effective disaster communication program
• DO NOT list out the topics or questions and answer them. They are not meant to be all-inclusive, and your reader will not understand the context.