Emergency Preparedness Planning
Layered information on our approach is being posted on a regular basis.

Why Plan?

Hurricanes, Dam Failures, Area Floods, Flash Floods, Wild Fires, Earthquakes, Blizzards, Terrorist Attacks, Tornadoes, Tsunami, Chemical Accidents on trucks, trains or ships, Loss of Essential Services and Medical Pandemic are but a few of the real possibilities and reoccuring disruptive events that we face every day. To this we now add the failure of local, state, federal, and non-government authorities to adequately plan for and respond to emergency situations that leave individuals, families, and communities to fend for themselves for a significant periods of time. Everyone should take steps to consider and prepare for their survival should they live through an initial disruptive event.

Our Approach to Preparedness

We believe that preparing for an Emergency rests in everyones hands. That is why our approach starts with the Individuals and Families and gets progressively broader as the area or size of the community gets larger. Our research has shown eight focuses for emergency preparedness.

1. Individual & Family Preparedness: This is where individual responsibility overtakes that of any other group or organization for planning, and taking targeted actions, to mitigate the impact of an emergency, as well as ensuring your survival beyond the initial impact of an emergency situation. For this approach we provide materials for planning, consulting to aid in design, development, and preparing space for emergencies.
2. Small Business Preparedness: In a way a small business is a family and it faces many of the issues that a family will face in emergencies, plus a few more. In defining small business, for this purpose, we consider employees, locations, and facilities. One to two facilities in the same region with less than 50 employees is considered small. Others should look at Large Business Preparedness. Nearly half of the businesses effected by an emergency will fail within 2 years of the event. So a little preparation will go a long way to ensuring your business is not one of those that fail. For this approach we provide materials for planning, consulting to aid in design, development, and preparing space for emergencies and recovery.
3. Group Emergency Preparedness: This facilitated approach to emergency planning is designed around community groups like churches, homeowners associations and small un-incorporated communities. The planning focus is either individual, family, or work related and can also include groups of small business teams. We provide a planning package and facilitation to assist the group in their initial planning during one evening session, with a follow-up to explore special issues, review plans and emergency kits, a few weeks later.
4. Large Business Preparedness: A large business has many regulatory requirements, ethical, and moral pressures, and survival considerations that individuals and small businesses don't have to deal with. This planning is broader and takes much more of a coordinated effort.
5. Community Preparedness: Communities, Towns, and Cities are complex and multi-layered requiring a broader and collaborative approach to emergency preparedness planning. It is also at this level that preparations must consider those that do not have the capacity, economically, physically, or mentally, to prepare for themselves.
6. Regional Emergency Preparedness: Planning for Regions and States mirrors Community Planning on a higher plane. The approach is still broader and collaborative yet instead of involving businesses and community leaders it involves representatives of community level planning groups and political appointees able to work between the community and region to create collaborative response approaches.
7. National Emergency Preparedness: These are agencies with a critical role in emergency preparedness and response planning like the state emergency management agencies, FEMA, CDC, Homeland Security, and the Military. Additionally, every federal agency must take steps to envision and develop plans for a national emergency and how they will respond individually and collaboratively with other agencies.
8. Specialty Groups: These are groups or organizations that usually respond to, or may be requested to respond to, emergencies where ever it occurs like the Red Cross.