County’s emergency plan is no accident

Orange County is located in central Florida, approximately 24 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and 63 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The county is susceptible to a wide range of natural disasters, including severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, sinkholes, freezes, floods and droughts.

So it was no accident that the county was one of the first in the nation to develop and implement a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP), based on the Emergency Support Function (ESF) concept.

Using this concept, various county agencies are grouped according to their functions into 20 ESFs, ranging from transportation to fire-fighting to law enforcement. The ESFs serve as the primary mechanism through which state assistance is requested and provided under the overall authority of the state coordinating officer.

The county’s Office of Emergency Management developed and maintains the CEMP, which establishes the framework for an effective system to make sure that the county and its municipalities are all adequately prepared for emergencies and disasters.

The CEMP outlines the roles and responsibilities of local, state and federal government agencies and volunteer organizations in the event of an emergency. The plan pulls together the efforts of these groups under designated lead agencies, thus enabling a comprehensive approach to mitigation, planning, response and recovery from identified hazards.

In describing how various outside resources should be coordinated to supplement county resources, the CEMP is structured to parallel state and federal activities set forth in the state’s CEMP and the Federal Response Plan.

The plan is operations-oriented and addresses county and inter-county evacuation, shelter, post-disaster response and recovery, rapid deployment and pre-deployment of resources, communications and warning systems. For the sake of preparedness, the plan also calls for annual exercises to determine the ability of local governments to respond to emergencies.

The basic strategies, assumptions and mechanisms by which the county will support local emergency management efforts are described in the CEMP. Each of the 20 ESFs is headed by a lead agency, such as the sheriff’s department, selected because of its expertise, authorities, resources and specific capabilities in each of the functional areas.

The CEMP is designed to establish uniform policy and procedures with the following specific goals:

• reducing the vulnerability of people and communities in the county to damage, injury and loss of life and property resulting from natural, technological or man-made emergencies, catastrophes or hostile military or paramilitary actions;

• preparing for prompt and efficient response and recovery;

• responding to emergencies using all systems, plans and resources necessary to preserve the health, safety and welfare of the citizens and visitors to the county;

• providing for the rapid and orderly start of restoration and rehabilitation efforts;

• providing an emergency management system that embodies all aspects of pre-emergency preparedness, as well as of post-emergency response, recovery and mitigation;

• minimizing the property damage, material shortages and service system disruptions caused by disasters; and

• managing emergency operations within the county by coordinating the use of all the resources available from municipalities, private industry, civic and volunteer organizations, state and federal agencies.

The ultimate responsibility for the protection of life and property and the preservation of public peace, health and safety lies with local governments. Through the development and ongoing improvement of its CEMP, Orange County has ensured that it will be better able to handle this responsibility.

This article was written by Ed Dow, emergency program specialist in the Orange County Office of Emergency Management, Fire Rescue Division.