WHAT IS COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS?

Most visitors who come to this website may not understand why the name Community Preparedness Consulting Services was chosen or what we represent. Depending on your background and experince you may initially assume that our primary focus is on homeowner associations, condominiums and and other types of residential communities. Although we provide services to these type organizations as well, the real meaning behind the name is much broader.  The term community represents

all the individual component of a community response system that come together as an integrated team to prepare, respond and recoverer from a variety of disaster and emergency events. These partners include the following response partners;

• Public Safety Community

This classification includes a number of agencies such as law enforcement, fire services, 911 communications, Emergency Medical Services¹ and the emergency management. This community represents the primary first responders to a local disaster or emergency and work well together because of their daily integration and cooperation.  During a disaster response, they may be considered a limited resources as their numbers are often set by budget constraint and other resource limitiations.  The size and scope of a disaster can exceed their capacity rapidly but most agencies and Public Safety Communities have robust mutual aid agreements where additional resources can be accessed within minutes to hours from surrounding agencies. As additional resources are need to manage an event State, regional and Federal assets can be mobilized to meet long term demands. These assets are much slower in their response and may take up to 72 hours to reach an impacted area. Although they are slower, they usually bring valuable resources on a much larger scale, and are often self-contained and self-sufficient, which decreases the impact on the disaster area.

• Public Health Community
  

The Public Health Community is responsible for the health, safety and well being of all individuals in the impacted area and includes strong relationships with health departments, Emergency Medical Services, hospitals, physicians, pharmacies, nursing homes, volunteer agencies and other health care organizations.  Although Emergency Medical Services was included in the Public Safety Community, in most States, their primary role, function, licensing and authority comes from the department of health.  The Public Health Community not only cares for the injured during a mass casualty event, they ensure worker safety from communicable disease and exposure to environmental causes, organize available resources to deal with the surge of patients in a limited resource environment, establish alternate treatment facilities, medication and vaccine distribution sites, plan for at-risk populations, and provide valuable information regarding sheltering, self protection, care of family members. 

• Volunteer Community

This is a very special group that include a number of organizations who prepared for, plan, and respond to meet the needs and demands of a local and regional disaster.  We are all familiar with National organizations such as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army who have responnse teams ready to respond as the needs arise.  However, there are a number of lesser know organizations who have very active and critical roles during disaster events.  This includes organizations such as ham radio operators who assist with critical communications, Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) units who augment disaster health care during times of crisis, Citizen Emergency Response Teams (CERT) who organize locally to deal with the immediate response needs to neighborhoods until help arrives. Additional organization often help with recover effort and include the Baptist Association, the Catholic Association, the Jewish Federation, civic groups, and other organizatons who assist with such things as sheltering, clean up, repair, feeding, clothing, counseling and other services as needed.

• Business Community

One of the greatest assets during a disaster or other crisis if the Business Community. Not only do the provide valuable resources and equipment to assist with disaster response, the provide criticle expertise to assist with such issues as logistics, sheltering, IT support, communication support, damage assesment, and a host of other services.  The Business Community is critical in the development of community resiliency to support the recovery process. Businesses who have robust disaster plans recover quicker, minimize loss and return to operational status quicker.  This helps the impacted area by providing critical services, supplies, and jobs to assist with recovery of personal property and infrastructure.  The economic recovery of an area is highly dependant on the Business Communities ability to recovery after a disaster event.

• Community Associations

Usually associated with large neighborhood organizations, condominuims, high rise building other geographical groups with common interest, Community Associations have a variety of opportunies to provide resiliency to their community and decrease the impact on the emergency response system during a disaster. By having robust disaster plans in place, they can provide comprehensive plans for sheltering their citizens, mitigate damage prior to an event, assist with evacuation, develop a variety of disaster response teams with local public safety assistance, and organize a variety of disaster recovery teams .  The idea is to become self-sufficient and resilient prior to a disaster.  Waiting for local, State or Federal resources to come in to assist with recovery often dooes not meet the immediate needs.  Resiliency take a proactive approach to disaster preparedness and response, helps in protecting lives and property, and speeds recovery after an event.

COMMUNITY PREPAREDENESS

Community Preparedness is the sum of the individual efforts by all the orgainzations and individuals involved in disaster preparedness and response. Community Prepareness Consulting Seervices recognizes the impact that each of these organization have on the disaster response and recovery system and also inderstands the value of an integrated response system.  Communications, education, training, planning and response are essential components of an integrated response system and developing the collaboration and relationships necessary for an effective, inegrateed response is critical prior to an event. With over 35 years experince in emergency services, disaster planning and response, community and volunteer services, Community Preparedness Consulting Services can provide the vision, guidance, planning, education, trainng and management needed to evaluate or develop your emergency or disaster response system. 

Fo additional information on how we can help in your community, contact;