Disaster Definitions, Classification, and the Disaster Cycle Practice Questions

25 multiple-choice questions on Disaster definitions, classification, and the disaster cycle for paramedic and EMT students, from Chapter 52 (Disaster Response). Read each question, pick your answer, then tap Show answer to check it and read the explanation.

25 practice questions

1. A disaster differs from a routine mass-casualty incident mainly in that a disaster:

   1. A. Involves at least 100 people injured or killed
   2. B. Is caused by nature rather than by people
   3. C. Is run by federal rather than local staff
   4. D. Disrupts the community and needs outside help
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   Answer: D. Disrupts the community and needs outside help

   A disaster is defined by its effect: it damages the community's ability to function, often including its infrastructure, and needs help from outside. Patient count alone does not define it; an MCI can occur within a disaster or without one, and disasters may be natural or human-made.

2. A tornado destroys a rural county's only hospital and its 911 center. There are 15 injured people. This event is best described as:

   1. A. Not a disaster, since there are under 20 patients
   2. B. A disaster, despite the modest patient count
   3. C. A disaster once the governor has declared one
   4. D. A routine call that needs a few extra units
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   Answer: B. A disaster, despite the modest patient count

   Losing the county's only hospital and its 911 center cripples the community's ability to respond, which makes this a disaster even though only 15 people are hurt. No patient count, such as 20, defines a disaster; the damage to systems the community depends on is what matters. A declaration is an administrative step that follows the damage; it is not what makes an event a disaster. Calling it a routine call that needs a few extra units ignores that the county has lost both its hospital and its dispatch center.

3. A large city has a building collapse with 60 injured patients. Its hospitals and EMS are intact, and regional mutual aid handles the load. This is best managed as:

   1. A. An MCI handled with regional resources
   2. B. A federal disaster that needs DMATs
   3. C. A disaster needing a Stafford Act request
   4. D. A routine call managed by the first unit
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   Answer: A. An MCI handled with regional resources

   When local and regional systems absorb the patient load and community functions are intact, the event is an MCI rather than a disaster, and regional mutual aid is the right tool. DMATs and Stafford Act declaration requests are reserved for events that exceed state and local capability, which this one does not. Sixty patients is far more than a first-arriving unit can manage as a routine call; it needs an MCI declaration and the incident command system.

4. Which activity belongs to the mitigation phase of the disaster cycle?

   1. A. Stocking a cache of triage tags and tarps
   2. B. Opening shelters as a hurricane makes landfall
   3. C. Retrofitting fire stations to resist quakes
   4. D. Rebuilding homes destroyed by a flood
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   Answer: C. Retrofitting fire stations to resist quakes

   Mitigation reduces or removes the impact of a hazard before it occurs, such as strengthening buildings or building levees. Stocking supplies is preparedness: it readies the response but does not lessen the hazard itself.

5. An EMS agency trains its crews on the flood plan and buys water rescue gear before the rainy season. This is part of which phase of the disaster cycle?

   1. A. Mitigation
   2. B. Response
   3. C. Recovery
   4. D. Preparedness
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   Answer: D. Preparedness

   Planning, training, exercising, and gathering equipment before an event are preparedness. Mitigation is often confused with it, but mitigation lessens the hazard's effect (for example, moving stations out of the floodplain) rather than readying responders.

6. Under the federal National Disaster Recovery Framework, short-term recovery after a disaster begins:

   1. A. While response work is still under way
   2. B. After the last patient has been transported
   3. C. Once the federal declaration has ended
   4. D. When the debris has been cleared away
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   Answer: A. While response work is still under way

   FEMA's National Disaster Recovery Framework describes recovery as a continuum: short-term recovery, such as restoring essential services, clearing debris, sheltering, and restoring health care, starts within days and overlaps the response, followed by intermediate and long-term recovery that can last years. Recovery does not wait for the last patient to be transported; rescue, patient care, and early recovery go on at the same time. A declaration does not have to end first; declared disasters fund recovery while the declaration is in effect. Debris clearance is itself a short-term recovery task, so recovery has already begun before the debris is gone.

7. Your agency's hazard vulnerability analysis (HVA) shows that river flooding occurs almost every year, and the agency has no water rescue plan. The HVA result should be used to:

   1. A. Wait for a flood to test the current plans
   2. B. Make flooding a top planning priority
   3. C. Plan first for the rarest worst-case event
   4. D. Leave flood planning to the state agency
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   Answer: B. Make flooding a top planning priority

   An HVA ranks hazards by probability, impact, and current readiness so that planning effort goes where risk is highest. A frequent hazard with no plan scores high; planning first for rare worst-case events wastes effort on lower overall risk.

8. Besides how likely a hazard is, a hazard vulnerability analysis rates:

   1. A. Its media interest and its political cost
   2. B. Its cost to the federal disaster budget
   3. C. Its impact and how prepared you are
   4. D. How many outside agencies it will need
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   Answer: C. Its impact and how prepared you are

   An HVA weighs probability against severity, including human, property, and service impacts, offset by existing mitigation and preparedness. Counting the agencies involved is a response detail, not part of the risk score.

9. Which event is a technological (human-made, unintentional) disaster?

   1. A. A drought that destroys a region's crops
   2. B. A wildfire started by a lightning strike
   3. C. A chemical plant blast that releases gas
   4. D. A tsunami that follows an offshore quake
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   Answer: C. A chemical plant blast that releases gas

   Technological disasters arise from human systems failing by accident, such as industrial explosions, dam failures, or transportation crashes. A wildfire started by lightning is natural, even though people often start wildfires too.

10. An earthquake damages a refinery, which then releases toxic gas into a nearby town. This combined event is best called a:

    1. A. Complex humanitarian emergency
    2. B. Slow-onset disaster
    3. C. Closed mass-casualty incident
    4. D. Natech (natural-technological) event
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    Answer: D. Natech (natural-technological) event

    A natech event is a natural hazard that triggers a technological disaster, such as a quake causing a chemical release. Planners must expect these cascades; it is not slow in onset, and with an ongoing release it is not a closed incident.

11. Disasters often 'cascade.' This means that one event:

    1. A. Sets off other hazards, like fires
    2. B. Repeats each year in one location
    3. C. Affects several states at once
    4. D. Needs a federal declaration to end
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    Answer: A. Sets off other hazards, like fires

    A cascade is a chain in which the first event causes secondary hazards, such as an earthquake causing fires, gas leaks, and power loss. Plans built only for the first event miss the secondary hazards that often cause much of the harm.

12. Which is an example of a slow-onset disaster?

    1. A. A building collapse
    2. B. A prolonged drought
    3. C. A flash flood
    4. D. A train derailment
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    Answer: B. A prolonged drought

    Slow-onset disasters, such as droughts, famines, and some epidemics, build over weeks to months and allow time for warning and response. Flash floods, collapses, and derailments are sudden-onset events with little or no warning.

13. Which type of disaster usually gives the least warning?

    1. A. Earthquake
    2. B. Hurricane
    3. C. River flood
    4. D. Drought
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    Answer: A. Earthquake

    Earthquakes strike with seconds of warning at most, so preparedness must already be in place. Hurricanes are tracked for days and river floods can be forecast from upstream rain, which allows evacuation and pre-staging.

14. A hospital loses power and water after a pipe bursts in its basement. No extra patients are arriving. For the hospital, this is best classified as a(n):

    1. A. External disaster
    2. B. Closed MCI
    3. C. Internal disaster
    4. D. Natech event
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    Answer: C. Internal disaster

    An internal disaster threatens the facility's own ability to operate, such as a fire, flood, or utility failure inside it. An external disaster is one outside the building that sends a surge of patients to it.

15. The 9th edition stresses that a changing climate means EMS agencies should expect:

    1. A. Hotter summers but fewer severe storms overall
    2. B. Higher risk mainly along the coasts
    3. C. Fewer wildfires as rainfall rises
    4. D. More frequent and severe weather events
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    Answer: D. More frequent and severe weather events

    Rising temperatures bring more intense heat waves, heavier rain and flooding, stronger storms, and longer wildfire seasons, so response plans must be updated and coordinated with other agencies. Storms and heavy rain are growing more severe along with the heat, wildfire seasons are getting longer rather than shorter, and inland areas face growing heat, flood, and fire risk, not just the coasts.

16. Over a decade, an EMS agency in a northern state sees more heat waves and more tick-borne illness than before. The best planning response is to:

    1. A. Keep plans based on past local disasters
    2. B. Update its HVA and plans for these hazards
    3. C. Wait for federal guidance before making changes
    4. D. Review these at its next 10-year update
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    Answer: B. Update its HVA and plans for these hazards

    Plans must change as hazards change; the 9th edition stresses updating plans as the climate shifts. Planning only from past local events misses new risks such as heat illness in areas that rarely saw it.

17. During a busy evening, a cyberattack locks up the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system your dispatchers rely on. The best immediate step is to:

    1. A. Stop sending units until CAD is restored
    2. B. Let crews self-dispatch from radio traffic
    3. C. Switch to the manual backup dispatch plan
    4. D. Transfer 911 calls to the state police
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    Answer: C. Switch to the manual backup dispatch plan

    As agencies rely more on technology, cyberattacks are a growing hazard, and plans must include manual backups such as paper run cards and radio logs. Holding calls or letting crews self-dispatch removes the control and tracking that dispatch provides.

18. A regional power outage is expected to last 5 days. Which effect on EMS operations should planners anticipate?

    1. A. Fewer calls since people stay at home
    2. B. Trouble fueling units as gas pumps fail
    3. C. Loss of hospital power within the first hour
    4. D. Mostly trauma calls from traffic crashes
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    Answer: B. Trouble fueling units as gas pumps fail

    Many systems depend on power, including fuel pumps, cell towers, and home medical devices, so long outages raise EMS demand and strain operations. Call volume usually rises, not falls, as people lose oxygen, heat, cooling, and refrigeration. Hospitals have backup generators that start within seconds, and outage calls are mostly medical, from failed home devices, heat or cold exposure, and carbon monoxide, rather than crash trauma.

19. An 'all-hazards' approach to disaster planning means that:

    1. A. A separate full plan is written per hazard
    2. B. Plans focus on the single likeliest hazard
    3. C. Each agency writes its plans on its own
    4. D. Plans share core functions for any event
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    Answer: D. Plans share core functions for any event

    All-hazards planning builds common functions, such as communications, evacuation, and mass care, that work in any disaster, with short annexes for hazard-specific needs. Writing a separate full plan for each hazard is unwieldy and leaves gaps for unexpected events.

20. In a large disaster, demand for EMS typically:

    1. A. Stays high for days to weeks
    2. B. Peaks and ends within an hour
    3. C. Falls once rescue work ends
    4. D. Drops after the first night
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    Answer: A. Stays high for days to weeks

    Disaster demand continues long after impact because of cleanup injuries, chronic illness without care, and damaged health systems. Expecting the call load to end after initial rescue leads to staffing plans that burn out crews.

21. After a well-publicized flood, truckloads of unrequested clothing arrive along with many self-deployed volunteers, clogging roads to the scene. This problem is called:

    1. A. Mitigation
    2. B. Convergence
    3. C. Cascading
    4. D. Surge capability
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    Answer: B. Convergence

    Convergence is the flood of people, supplies, and attention toward a disaster site, which can block access and overwhelm managers. It is not cascading, which describes one hazard triggering others.

22. Over recent decades, the main reason deaths from US hurricanes have fallen is:

    1. A. Faster helicopter rescue after landfall
    2. B. Larger trauma centers on the coast
    3. C. Early warning and evacuation
    4. D. More federal teams on standby
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    Answer: C. Early warning and evacuation

    Forecasting, warnings, and timely evacuation move people out of harm's way before landfall, and this has saved far more lives than any step taken after the storm hits. Faster helicopter rescue after landfall helps, but it reaches people only after they are already in danger. Larger coastal trauma centers and federal teams on standby treat the injured, but most hurricane deaths are not ones that hospital care can reverse; preventing exposure is what lowered the toll.

23. You help write your county's disaster plan. Beyond natural hazards, the plan should also address:

    1. A. Technological and human-caused events
    2. B. Events already seen in the county
    3. C. Weather events with a federal declaration
    4. D. Hazards listed in the state EMS law
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    Answer: A. Technological and human-caused events

    A sound plan covers natural, technological (industrial, infrastructure, cyber), and intentional hazards. Limiting it to events seen locally before ignores new risks, which the 9th edition warns about as technology and the climate change.

24. A disaster is classified as intentional when it:

    1. A. Follows a long period of public warning
    2. B. Has a sudden rather than slow onset
    3. C. Has been declared by the governor
    4. D. Is caused on purpose, as in terrorism
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    Answer: D. Is caused on purpose, as in terrorism

    Human-made disasters are either unintentional (technological accidents) or intentional (terrorism, sabotage, mass shootings). Intentional events add hazards such as secondary devices and crime scenes; warning time and onset speed are separate ways to classify events.

25. The four phases of the comprehensive disaster cycle, in order, are:

    1. A. Preparedness, warning, rescue, and rebuilding
    2. B. Mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery
    3. C. Response, recovery, review, and mitigation
    4. D. Planning, response, triage, and reunification
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    Answer: B. Mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery

    Emergency management describes a continuous cycle of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, with recovery feeding back into mitigation. Triage and reunification are response tasks, not phases of the cycle.