This assignment combines concepts from Units II and III and will require you to consider planning elements necessary to affect an immediate evacuation within your own community. A basic scenario provides you with some framework and flexibility in your discussion of the planning processes. This also gives you an opportunity to work with the community emergency operations plan.
Scenario: Assume you are the emergency preparedness coordinator for your own community. A hazard has caused an incident within the community that has led to the need for an evacuation that will likely last at least three days. Your incident must be hypothetical, you may not base this assignment on an actual even that has already occurred in your community.
To complete this assignment, you first will need to locate the current emergency operations plan for your community. This is normally available online or can be requested from officials. If you run into difficulty obtaining your local plan, you may substitute a plan from a similar surrounding jurisdiction or utilize a county-level plan. It is possible that a plan does not exist for your community. In this case, ask your local emergency officials which plan or authority they defer to.
Next, you will identify an evacuation-causing hazard, map out the evacuation area, and develop the evacuation plan. The area you choose must include a school that is in session and an assisted living facility or medical center. You have the flexibility to alter the existing plan to craft it how you think will be most effective. Your plan must contain the following components:
Overview of the hazard and evacuation. Include a map of the evacuation area in Appendix A.
Scope of the mission. Include identification the planning processes that are utilized.
Execution plan. Include timing and various departments roles and responsibilities, incident command post and emergency operation center activations.
Resources needed to meet specific community evacuation needs.
Communication plan to inform citizens and dispel myths or misinformation.
Hurdles and challenges to the evacuation process. Include challenges specific to interagency collaboration as well as community-specific challenges that can impact the mission.
Unit III Scholarly Activity Guidance provides further detailed instruction, along with a suggested plan approach. You may modify the approach or lay out your plan as you choose, but you must ensure your evacuation action plan is complete, addresses all required components, and applies concepts learned in both Unit II and Unit III.
Your paper must be a minimum of three written pages. The graphic of the evacuation area, and any other graphics you deem necessary to support your plan will be included in your paper as Appendix A.
You must use at least two sources, other than the community emergency operations plan and your eTextbook, to support your assignment. These may be resources from the CSU Online Library or government agencies, or other resources that are reputable and of scholarly value. Wikis, blogs, and other opinion-based sources may not be used.
