In response to October’s PM Magazine article, Tune Up Your Emergency Preparedness (subscribers only), Rob Gould, senior training manager, Center for Public Safety Management, recommends several steps to preparing your community for emergency events. Here are some additional resources to help you in your emergency response:

Update the local government’s emergency operations plan and checklists.

• FEMA: Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment Guide – This guide is designed to help local leaders assess their current risks and how to make smart decisions on how to manage these risks
• DHS Bomb Threat Checklist — Utilize this checklist to ensure your organization has an organized approach to managing a bomb threat.

Equip and practice setting up an emergency operations center (EOC).

• Sutter County, California, EOC Handbook and Checklists — Developing a handbook like this can ensure that you EOC is prepared.

Understand the National Incident Management System (NIMS)

• National Incident Management System and Incident Command System Training — This document outlines the various training opportunities available to your personnel.

Feed a local government’s website and local news stations with accurate information on the local emergency and the response.

• Ideas on How to Keep Your Citizens Informed — Christen Geiler, digital information specialist, National Institutes of Health, covers how digital media syndications is an easy way to feed your local website with the latest information from federal agencies.

Don’t scrimp on record keeping

• 5 Reasons Effective Records Management Needs ‘Enterprise Content Management’—Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is one strategy you can utilize to keep your records in order. This blog post from OnBase by Hyland marketing manager, Terri Jones, shares her experience implementing ECM.

Assemble your development assistance and social service teams

• Community Planning and Capacity Building: Recovery Support Function (CPCB RSF) — Gould states in the article, “as soon as the emergency is over, residents will want [an] answer on how to rebuild their homes and lives.” This document outlines out how the CPCB RSF from FEMA is designed to do just this.