Content of a typical community emergency plan
As was pointed out earlier, emergency management plans should not be generic, but should be developed for the specific community to which they pertain. There are however some key considerations that should be included, as necessary, within all emergency management plans. Because of the time constraints imposed upon you by the academic period of study, we cannot expect you to develop your plan to such a comprehensive degree, hence why the suggested content of your plan is limited. This has been done to enable you to examine key, essential aspects that should be included in all emergency management plans. Given an appropriate amount of time however it would be expected that your emergency management plan would be comprehensive and address a wide range of essential areas pertinent to the emergency management preparedness of your community.
Activity 3.4
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OK, your assignment requirements aside, what do you see as being the likely content of a comprehensive community emergency plan? There are a number of possible ways of organising a community emergency plan, how would you do it? Consider the discussions in your text books from earlier activities. You might also care to review the content of some emergency management plans that you have located. Write down some of the elements you think should be included in such a plan. |
Print this activity
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The table below shows the possible content of a community emergency plan. How does your list compare? Have you identified aspects that I haven't? Are there some aspects in the list below that you have not thought of? There isn’t a write and wrong answer here. What we have done is simply highlight the need to undertake a comprehensive planning process before an emergency occurs in order to ameliorate potential problems, preferably before they occur.
Possible content of a community emergency plan
Chapter |
Section |
Content |
1. Introduction |
- Aim, objectives, scope, authority
- Related documents
- Definitions and abbreviations
- Hazard analysis
|
- (refer to appendix)
- (refer to appendix)
- (refer to appendix)
|
2. Management structure |
- Emergency powers
- Control
- Command
- Communication
- Emergency coordination centres
- Post-emergency review
|
- powers to release or commandeer resources
- relationship between organisations and organisational levels
- management of ECCs
- management of debriefs and review
|
3. Organisation roles |
- Description by role
- Description by organisation
- Emergency operation centres
|
- description of roles and responsibilities
- management of EOCs
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4. Information management |
- Alerting
- Damage assessment
- Information processing
- Public information
- Reporting
- Translation and interpreting
|
- means of gathering information
- means of handling information
- types of information released
- reporting to higher authorities
- language interpretation
|
5. Resource management |
- Resource coordination
- Administration
- Financial procedures
- External assistance (provincial, national and international)
|
- resource analysis
- resource deployment and monitoring
- accounting for expenditure
|
6. Specific plans |
- Search and rescue
- Evacuation
- Health and medical
- Social welfare
- Hazardous materials
- Transport and lifelines
- Police and investigation
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- specific plans of action for specific aspects of response and recovery
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Appendices |
- Issue history and amendment list
- Distribution list
- Definitions and abbreviations
- Summary of Hazard analysis
- Maps
- Planning groups
- Emergency contacts
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- the means of distributing and maintaining the emergency plan
- short list of essential terms and abbreviations and their meaning
- description of likely effects of emergencies
- hazard, community and vulnerability maps
- names and contact details of relevant people and organisations
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Source: Community Emergency Preparedness Manual, World Health Organisation, Geneva.
