How the City Government Prepares for Disaster

Getting the City government ready for a disater requires a lot of hard work. It is a team effort involving all City of Seattle departments. The role of the Office of Emergency Management is to coordinate this work to ensure good communication between different department and a clear sense of direction. We accomplish these objectives by first planning, then training staff on the plan and finally validating the plan and training with exercises and after action reports following real events.

Planning

The Seattle Disaster Readiness and Response Plan provides the foundation for the City's comprehensive emergency management program. The most recent Plan update was completed on December 31, 2002.

Seattle Municipal Code and State law set forth the process for managing the City's Disaster Readiness and Response Plan. Requirements include:

• keeping the plan current under the direction of the Mayor;
• the Mayor must submit the plan to the City Council for review and approval via formal resolution;
• after Council approval, the plan must be submitted to the Washington State Emergency Management Director to make sure it is consistent with criteria found in State regulations and the Washington State Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.

The Seattle Disaster Readiness and Response Plan, maintained by the Emergency Management Operations and Training Unit, is organized in two volumes. Its contents comply with both City and State law. The Basic Plan (Volume I) articulates the underlying concepts of the City's comprehensive emergency management program and links them to public policy. At least every four years, the Emergency Management Director submits plan revisions to the Disaster Management Committee (DMC) for review and recommendation to the Mayor.

Volume II, entitled Emergency Support Functions (ESF's) 1-9, details how each ESF will organize and manage assigned responsibilities in a major emergency or disaster. The ESF Coordinator writes the ESF annex, keeps it current, and submits it to the DMC for review.

While the Seattle Disaster Readiness and Response Plan represents the City's primary source of guidance for emergency management, each department is responsible for its own emergency preparedness plan. These plans are department specific, and serve as risk management and business continuity planning documents. The Operations and Training Unit assists departments by providing a generic outline for department plans.

In addition, the Unit provides technical advice to ensure the department plan is consistent with the Seattle Disaster Readiness and Response Plan.

Training and Exercises

For the City to maintain its ability to respond effectively in an actual emergency requires ongoing vigilance.and practice. As part of its contract with the Washington State Emergency Management Division (EMD), the City agrees to conduct a full-scale exercise every four years and a functional exercise in each of the intervening years. The Agreement defines the exercise requirements and the City's plan for conducting them. A real event requiring the City to activate the Emergency Operations Center counts in place of a scheduled exercise.

The Disaster Management Committee (DMC) oversees the exercise design and evaluation. For this purpose, the DMC forms an interdepartmental subcommittee to:

• Establish the goals and objectives of the exercise;

• Create the scenario;

• Develop exercise messages and props;

• Determine exercise evaluation criteria;

• Recruit qualified evaluators and facilitators;

• Arrange for exercise venues; and

• Conduct the exercise.

The Emergency Management Operations and Training Unit leads the subcommittee and supports the entire effort. When the after-action report is compiled from evaluator inputs and approved by the DMC, the Operations and Training Unit prepares a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) form for the Emergency Management Director to sign. Seattle Emergency Management then submits the signed form along with the report in order to receive state credit.