Emergency Preparedness is the process of turning awareness of natural hazards and intentional threats faced by a region, city or community into actions that improve its capability to respond and recover.

Today, the federal government has become more active in response planning, and business and industry are taking more responsibility for augmenting community emergency response planning/capabilities. Perhaps the greatest change in response planning and practice has been the integration of new agencies (Home Land Security), groups and response proffessions. Advances in warning and communications technology in the United States provide new opportunities for emergency responders.

Preparedness plans need to address not just the immediate response, but the longer-term recovery and reconstruction. The recovery process is multifaceted and complex with many partners and community participants.  Moreover, there is relatively little analysis or documentation of successful community recovery and reconstruction efforts. The recovery phase is an opportune time for local leadership to reexamine community goals, select recovery strategies that are compatible with revised goals, and incorporate mitigation measures into both long-range planning and immediate decision-making.

In a crisis, local, city, state, and tribal nations must be ready to respond quickly and effectively.

States, Tribes and local health departments must stand ready to handle many different types of emergencies that threaten the health and safety of the nation.

CDC provides funding and technical assistance to build public health preparedness and response capabilities nationwide. CDC’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Cooperative Agreement provides funding to 50 states, 4 cities, and 8 U.S. territories and freely associated states.

There are 4 phases of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. These phases describe a continuous cycle of planning, organizing, training, equipping, exercising and evaluating emergency preparedness activities and allows organizations to increase their overall capacity and resiliency to experience and recover from any type of disaster.  The goal of preparedness is to lessen the impact of disasters on vulnerable populations, to ready an organization for an invasion of activity, and to design a coordinated plan that reduces the waste of resources, time, and efforts.

The first step when developing an emergency response plan is to conduct a risk assessment to identify potential emergency scenarios.  An understanding of what can happen will enable you to determine resource requirements and to develop plans and procedures to properly prepare. 

Services Provided:

• All aspects of Emergency Preparedness and Response Planning
  • Personal Preparedness
  •  Planning ahead
  • Building resilient community coalitions
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Natural Disasters
  • Chemical/Radiation Spills
  • Bioterrorism
  • Pandemic Influenza
  • Laboratory Assistance
  • Disaster Relief
  • Behavioral Health – coping with a traumatic event
  • Emergency Preparedness Partnerships
• Crisis & Risk Communication
• Reaching at Risk Populations
• Assist with CDC’s PHEP
• Global Preparedness and Response
• Developing an Emergency Operations Center
• Occupational Safety and Health
• Provide information and notifications during a public health emergency.