An Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) is a significant element of an organization’s response to potential hazards. Although they may remain the same for one area throughout the years, new tools for vulnerability assessment and population warnings appear, potentially improving the strategy. The EOP under consideration is outdated and requires a revision to include the best practice and avoid certain pitfalls in emergency planning. The paper will focus on protective action recommendations (PARs), the planning process, assessment tools, and population warning.
Due to the EOP being outdated, the organization might want to consider whether it is capable of performing protective actions. They include in-place protection, evacuation, and expedient respiratory protection, all of which may need alterations or replacements (Perry & Lindell, 2006). As far as in-place protection is concerned, the first step will be to review the building’s readiness to withstand various hazards, which necessitates compiling a checklist for each of them (Perry & Lindell, 2006). Afterward, one should underline the situations when remaining indoor is not recommended (Perry & Lindell, 2006). The guidelines for possible in-place damages should also be added (Rogers et al., 2017). The evacuation component will involve reassessing its completeness, timeliness, and existing resource reliance and analyzing flexibility, which might have been significantly altered throughout the years (Perry & Lindell, 2006). Considering special facilities and safety hazards is also essential, as they are liable to change (Perry & Lindell, 2006). As for expedient respiratory protection, the material inventory is to be investigated, and the guidelines for using them should be established (Perry & Lindell, 2006). Overall, reassessing PARs is a major part of revising the EOP.
The planning process is arguably the aspect requiring the most attention. It does not imply completeness in general, but an outdated EOP will especially need revisions (Perry & Lindell, 2006). Before implementing certain PARs, including those described previously, the organization should reevaluate the relevant hazards and various vulnerabilities. Although the analysis of natural disasters from the previous edition may still be applicable, anthropogenic hazards, including terrorism and large-scale industrial accidents, are worth reassessing based on the recent history (Perry & Lindell, 2006). Accordingly, human, structural, and social vulnerabilities should also be subject to reanalysis due to new threats, building deterioration, and the area’s or the organization’s updated demographics (Perry & Lindell, 2006). For instance, the affected body might have more people with disabilities and minorities than before, altering the course of action (South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control [SCDHEC], 2019). Shelter reconsideration is also an essential measure because the buildings might have undergone reconstruction and are no longer available (SCDHEC, 2019). Altogether, one has to consider the imminent threats and the physical vulnerabilities during the planning process to select the appropriate PARs.
In order to perform the assessment accurately, one would need the relevant data on the population covered by the EOP. Although such methods as the Community Vulnerability Assessment Tool may still be used, new instruments have appeared since the plan was last updated. One of them combines qualitative data obtained through diagrams, maps, and the SWOT analysis with quantitative one, reflecting questionnaire results (Ahmed & Kelman, 2018). The mapping tools include social, resource, dream, transect, mobility, and vulnerability, which allows the organization to address those as thoroughly as possible (Ahmed & Kelman, 2018). The method was tested in Bangladesh, and its results served as a foundation for improving hazard readiness (Ahmed & Kelman, 2018). Another tool is rapid vulnerability assessment, which is appropriate for smaller communities and prioritizes such aspects as risk and impacts, including adaptively, sensitivity, and exposure (Sowman & Raemaekers, 2018). Although it is more commonly used for big-scale analysis, its qualitative flexibility makes the method a solid alternative (Sowman & Raemaekers, 2018). In conclusion, one has several recently developed tools at disposal to conduct the hazard and vulnerability assessment.
Another aspect to update in the EOP is population warning, which has also acquired new instruments. Although the whole model might need an overhaul, the focus will be the channels. Nowadays, the Internet might have overshadowed the traditional ones, and social media usage has become prominent (Bennett, 2018). For instance, Twitter is an important platform that can be implemented into the EOP because it appears to effective as far as all the characteristics are concerned (Bennett, 2018). Although the website’s potential is fully realized during large-scale hazards, the warning function can also work on local and organizational levels, provided the community follows the official accounts. However, as not everyone has social media accounts, ignoring other channels, including sirens, SMS, and face-to-face relays, would be imprudent. Thus, while implementing new warning methods is crucial, they should not be the only means of informing the population.
To revise an old EOP, one must consider such aspects as PARs, the planning process, assessment tools, and population warning. However, selecting the PARs is impossible without assessing hazards and vulnerabilities, which requires appropriate and modern methods of data gathering. Those processes are connected, and new developments should be reflected in the updated plan. Additionally, Internet-based warning channels, such as Twitter, may be considered due to their effectiveness, but they cannot be the sole source of information.
References
Ahmed, B., & Kelman, I. (2018). Measuring community vulnerability to environmental hazards: A method for combining quantitative and qualitative data. Natural Hazards Review, 19(3), 04018008-1-04018008-10. Web.
Bennett, D. (2018). Emergency preparedness collaboration on Twitter. Journal of Emergency Management (Weston, Mass.), 16(3), 191-202. Web.
Perry, R. W., & Lindell, M. K. (2006). Emergency planning. John Wiley & Sons.
Rogers, F.B., McCune, W., Jammula, S., Gross, B. W., Bradburn, E. H., Riley, D. K., & Manning, J. (2017). Emergency operations program is an excellent platform to deal with in-hospital operation disaster. American Journal of Disaster Medicine, 12(4), 267-273. Web.
South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. (2019). Emergency operations plan. Web.
Sowman, M., & Raemaekers, S. (2018). Socio-ecological vulnerability assessment in coastal communities in the BCLME region. Journal of Marine Systems, 188, 160-171. Web.