Disaster and Emergency Planning
Disaster and Emergency Planning
Disaster and Emergency Planning
Understanding Disaster
A DISASTER is a sudden, unforeseen, extraordinary occurrence. It can be
considered as an EMERGENCY but an emergency may not always be a disaster.
An Emergency Falls into 2 Broad Categories:
Pro-Crisis Action - “The planning process begins with the understanding of the situation
and recognition that a number of policy decisions can be made before the actual
planning can begin”,
“Many emergencies can be prevented completely with the adequate thought and action.
Others can be anticipated –often by doing nothing but mere common sense.
Good Planning
o Consider all possibilities
o Don’t focus only on immediate problem
o Establish contacts
Good Personnel
o Look for experience and knowledge
o Train, test and evaluate
o Use people effectively and humanely
o Organize to mitigate stress
Good Shakedowns
o Test plans and people
o Evaluate and revise plans
o Keep an open mind
Maintain Control
o Be creative
o Look for the real problem
o Have confidence in your plans
o Keep records
Disaster team leadership is vested primary tasks is to ensure that the control is
maintained over the team’s activities, information flow, and the implementation of
decisions and organizational policies.
For these reason, the team leader should be a person who has demonstrated ability
to function under pressure, must have sufficient authority to make on the spot
decisions with in the framework of overall organization’s policy, access to decision
makers when required, and the ability to recognize which decisions to make
independently an which to refer to upper management.