Disaster Planning – Essential

If you are just starting out with disaster planning and you have limited resources, this is the place to start. We have outlined simple, essential tasks that make sure you have thought about and recorded the most basic elements of a disaster plan.  Don’t overwhelm yourself by thinking you must complete everything at once. Plan for a slow and steady completion of each step.

  • Acquire, review the Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel or the mobile app.
  • Gather phone numbers for contacts needed in emergency (staff and volunteers; utilities/repairmen; recovery vendors)
  • Create an evacuation plan for the facility that addresses the safety of visitors and staff
  • Meet with local emergency responders (fire department, county emergency management agency)
    • Share your evacuation plan
    • Show them around significant areas in your facility
    • Discuss after-hours access
    • Discuss typical response time to your location
    • Talk with them about what resources they may be able to make available to you
  • Draw up a basic floor plan indicating location of alarms, extinguishers, water and heat controls, etc.
  • Create and document a process for computer back ups
  • Record location of supplies, tools that would be useful in an emergency
  • Meet with insurance agent
  • Assign an institutional spokesperson for emergency situations

The following Word documents include agendas for meetings to work through the disaster planning process, an overview and who should attend the meeting, things to keep in mind during the meeting, and suggestions and examples that have come out of CERC’s facilitated disaster planning process.

You do not necessarily need to do the meetings in the suggested order. Also be aware that a multi-building campus may require more than one Facilities Meeting.

Once you have completed the meetings and compiled the final plan, schedule a final meeting with everyone that was involved to review the plan contents.

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