Week three of Building Safety Month is ‘Understanding the Four Phases of Emergency Management”. Even though there are many distinct types of natural and manmade hazards, they have a common element that can allow you to prepare and protect yourself from disasters.
Most emergency managers think of disasters as recurring events with four phases: Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. A community should be in at least one phase of emergency management at any time.
Disaster Preparedness Phase
The Preparedness phase, should be a continuous cycle of planning, training and educating for events that can not be mitigated. At the family level, develop plans if you have to evacuate or shelter in place. At the community level, planning and mutual support agreements should be developed. Once these are finalized, they should be regularly reviewed to ensure that new issues or hazards are addressed. Educate the residents on the details and periodically remind and educate them on the plans, especially if changes have been made.
As a family, you should have a plan for each type of disaster that you may face. Ready.gov has several checklists to help with developing a plan. Just a few of those considerations should be a family/household communications plan, special dietary needs, pets or service animals, medications, documents, evacuation and shelter plans, evacuation routes, evacuation routes, and crucial documents. The Federal Alliance for Safe Homes has resources on their website on how to protect your home from many types of natural disasters.
The Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management has a great guide available on their website for communities to identify, assess and plan for disasters. Once the risks have been identified and plans are developed and proved, training of the designated personnel and drills or tabletop exercises should be conducted to identify areas not addressed by the plan. Everyone should know their role in plan and the community as a whole should be educated and informed of the plan’s details.
Regardless if you are an individual, a family/household or a community, have a plan and know your part in it.
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