The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines an emergency as "any unplanned event that can cause deaths or significant injuries to employees, customers, or the public; or that can shut down your business, disrupt operations, cause physical or environmental damage, or threaten the facility's financial standing or public image."

Development and implementation of emergency response procedures, including establishing and managing an emergency operations or command center during the emergency, is critical to response and stabilization of the situation following an incident or event.

The first step in the development of an emergency response plan is to review the organizations current emergency response procedures to establish potential inadequacies.

Vulnerability Analysis...

A Vulnerability Analysis allows you to consider many different types of events, which could have a negative impact on your people and your business. The key to the use of the Vulnerability Analysis is the recognition of the many types of emergencies, which could affect you, the projected impact of the emergency, and the resources that are available to respond to the emergency. An example of a Vulnerability Analysis Matrix can be found here.

Development of Emergency Response Teams...

During recovery from a disaster or event, the business units or divisions within an organization will need to concentrate on restoring their own environment and becoming productive again. The technology support staff within an organization will be focused on providing a restored technical environment so that the divisions can access their systems and data and become productive again.

Therefore it is necessary to create recovery support teams that are activated during recovery procedures. These teams are comprised of the organization's decision makers who have the authority to declare a disaster status on behalf of the organization, as well as the authority to release funds from the organization, deal with insurance companies, the press, and process any employee personal claim or pay issues.

Command and control establishes who is in control of the emergency response and recovery, defines roles and responsibilities, and establishes the reporting structure of the response teams.

For organizations that have the internal resources available to create separate support teams, the following suggestions could be considered and/or customized.

1. Crisis management team (senior staff decision-makers that should be the initial contact and lead on every event).
1. Determine appropriate emergency response strategy and recovery activation.
2. Determine communications strategies.
3. Activate the BCP plan.
4. Notification of recovery team leads.
5. Analyze damage assessments to determine disaster declaration.
6. Initiate disaster declaration if necessary.
2. Administrative support team (distribution, purchasing, human resources, facilities, administrative support).
1. Establish emergency command center if appropriate.
2. Address administrative support issues (mail, couriers, etc).
3. Coordinate internal disaster notification and updates to technical and user personnel.
4. Procure forms and supplies for recovery processing as detailed by recovery teams and business units.
3. Damage assessment team (business units staff).
1. Conduct preliminary assessments of damage to:
1. Structures (e.g. buildings, offices, furniture).
2. Environmental support (e.g., air conditioning, power supply).
3. Environmental protection and security equipment (card access systems, alarm systems).
4. Computer hardware, software, communications, networks.
2. Estimate usability and time to recover critical resources.
3. Report assessment and recommendations to crisis management team.
4. Recovery coordination team (those most familiar with the recovery plans).
1. Coordination of all activities and communication between technical areas and user areas.
2. Coordinating the activities of the recovery teams (planning, back-up, recovery, restoration/construction).
3. Conflict/resolution at time of disaster.
4. Assist crisis management team with details of the plan and alternative actions if needed.
5. Timely updates of the recovery process.
6. Receipt and updating of disaster recovery logs from corporate team leads.
5. Corporate communications team (marketing or HR representatives with media response training).
1. Assist crisis management team with finalizing communications strategy.
2. Initial public/stakeholder communication.
3. Key customer contact notification.
4. Activation of internal call trees.
5. Setup of internal status notification process
6. Human resources team including legal
1. Deal with all associate related issues.
2. Scheduling of personnel during recovery.
3. Acquiring additional staff as necessary.
4. Activation family care center plans.
5. Coordinating with insurance and/or legal representatives.
7. Site restoration team (facilities, security, and purchasing)
1. Damage assessment.
2. Coordinate salvage efforts related to structure etc.
3. Obtain new facilities as requested by crisis management team.
4. Coordinate the repair/replacement of environmental equipment, security, etc.
5. Ensure security at damaged and alternate facilities.
6. Ensure proper power and environmentals are in place to accommodate equipment.
8. Transportation team
1. Coordinating travel arrangements.
2. Coordinating with customs brokers if necessary.
3. Coordinating delivery of equipment.
4. Coordinating meals for personnel.
5. Accepting travel requests from team leads.
9. Legacy system restoration team
1. Assisting in the recovery and maintenance of the operating system software, application software, and databases at the alternate site.
2. Establishing and monitoring operations at the alternate site and again in the restoration and resolution phase.
3. Coordinating salvage efforts related to computer hardware.
4. Coordinating the acquisition, delivery, installation, testing, and turnover of the equipment at alternate and primary sites.
10. Voice recovery team and end-user technical support team.
1. Activation of interim voice message intercept and assist with the call center startup.
2. Assisting in the recovery and maintenance of the network operating system software, application software, and databases at the alternate site.
3. Establishing and monitoring network operations at the alternate site and again in the restoration and resolution phase.
4. Coordinating salvage efforts related to network computer hardware.
5. Coordinating the acquisition, delivery, installation, testing, and turnover of the network equipment at alternate and primary sites.

It is vital that all of your emergency planning efforts are coordinated with the organizations that you are relying on to help you respond to an emergency. Share your needs, requests and resources with the local community emergency response organizations. Joint training and exercising will permit both organizations to develop a working relationship and test equipment, procedure and organizational coordination.

Additional information for coordination with local emergency organizations can be found on our Coordination with Public Authorities page.