PHOTO: NASA
I’m a certified member of our Community Emergency Response Team (“CERT”). I’ve worked on the neighborhood GMRS radio emergency communications network. I’m helping develop a mesh network for texting around the ‘hood when internet and phones are down (as they were for a couple of weeks following Hurricane Lala a few weeks ago). I’m a retired physician. I have a lot of good emergency resources at the compound (emergency water, off-grid electricity, satellite internet). So it isn’t surprising that I got invited to a meeting to discuss emergency preparedness.
It was a good discussion, though a bit far-ranging. We decided that, as a community (not just CERT or the GMRSers or mesherz or community association members) we needed an emergency response plan. There’s another community at the other end of this island who has one, and it seemed like a good idea. I said that I’d take a copy of that plan and a template that the County’s office of Civil Defense provides and sketch out a potential plan (not write a draft) to get us started on figuring out exactly what we need.
I’ve been looking at the resources. It turns out the other community’s plan is 80 pages long. I seriously doubt more than a small handful of people — even of the key players mentioned in the plan — have even skimmed the whole thing. Which presents a conundrum I’ve faced before.
Details matter. It’s important to anticipate hiccups and problems and try to design around them. At the same time, if nobody actually reads, understands, and maintains the plan then it might as well not exist.
It is early days, but I suspect that we’ll end up with three documents:
-
A single-sheet two-sided colorful and easily accessed document to laminate and give to community members to attach with magnets to their fridge. Maybe we’ll even provide the magnets. It will answer big, immediate questions: What the heck do I do now? Can anyone help me? Whom do I call? Must I stick to archiac grammatical rules during this emergency? It will be an overview of the emergency plan so that people will have a clue what’s going on, and maybe even become engaged with advance planning, maintenance of the document, and volunteering resources. It should be interesting enough that people read a bit of it occasionally when they’re accessing their refrigerated food.
-
A small (16 page? A2 format?) booklet that can live in folks’ chaos drawer. We can give out an updated copy every year, if only to make sure it floats to the top of the chaos. Most folks will toss it in the drawer and forget it. Some will glance through it. A tiny few will actually read it (mayhap we can toss in an Easter egg or two for their benefit). But if we build it right, perhaps at least a sizeable minority will at least remember that it exists when the need arises.
-
A comprehensive plan. I’d hope we can squeeze it down to a bit smaller than 80 pages. After all, emergency response by definition will be largely ad-hoc. What we need is the organizational structure to get the ad-hoc planning started as quickly and efficiently as possible, get structured interfaces in place with governmental organizations, and with the minimal number of missed opportunities to get stuff structured on the front end before all manner of weirdness breaks out.
I’ll see how the core people react to this. I think, though, that everyone involved realizes that the most comprehensive and detailed plan is meaningless if nobody reviews it, updates it, or even remembers that it exists when disaster strikes.
—2p