Individual Preparedness & Response

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Four Phases of Emergency Management

Preparedness, one of the four phases of emergency management, is a team effort. King County Office of Emergency Management provides information and resources to help you better prepare for the possibility of an emergency or disaster. During a major disaster it helps if everyone can do their part by:

Being informed on the hazards that exist in our region and how they can affect you personally.
Knowing how to react when a disaster or emergency does occur.
Having an evacuation and communications plan in place so everyone in your family knows what to do and where to go.
Putting together disaster supplies to help sustain you until services are restored or help can be provided.

What you do now can help you and your family better respond to and recover from disaster, as well as contribute to the overall readiness of our region.

Preparedness Motivations

Four surveys were conducted this year examining local emergency and disaster preparedness attitudes, motivations and perceptions in our region. The surveys were conducted by two national survey research organizations and funded by a homeland security grant, this marks the first time King County has had the ability to assess the preparedness motivations of the Puget Sound region, making these results all the more valuable for the insight they lend to our public education programs.

These surveys were accomplished in three phases: the first utilizing three locally held focus groups, the second using a telephone survey of 500 randomly selected King County residents, and the third utilizing a second telephone survey of 500 randomly selected adults from King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

The King County Office of Emergency Management plans to utilize the survey results in working with the regional partners to help measure the effectiveness of emergency and disaster preparedness public education programs, as well as to help define the direction of future survey efforts.

Hebert Emergency Preparedness Research - 2007 (786 KB PDF - 134 pages)
Marshall Marketing & Communications - Disaster Preparedness Poll (1MB)
Hebert Emergency Preparedness Research - 2006 (370 KB PDF - 85 pages)
Hebert Emergency Preparedness Research - Phase I (262 KB PDF - 52 pages)
Hebert Emergency Preparedness Research - Phase II (436 KB PDF - 79 pages)
Belo Marketing Custom Research Benchmark Study (2004) (6,244 KB PDF - 15 pages)
Belo Marketing Benchmark and Tracking Studies (June, 2005) (6,618 KB PDF - 16 pages)
Belo Marketing Benchmark and Tracking Studies (December, 2005) (77 KB PDF - 23 pages)
Marshall Marketing / KIRO TV Disaster Preparedness Poll (December, 2005) (659 KB PDF - 18 pages)

Assessing the Preparedness of Your Community

Did you know that every city in Washington State is required to have an emergency plan and a dedicated Emergency Management Director? Find out who’s responsible for your city’s preparedness and ask them the following questions to find out what you can do to help prepare your city:

In my community, who is responsible for emergency management?
How can I contact them?
Does my city have an emergency plan?
How or where do I go to review a copy of my city’s emergency plan?
How does my city practice our emergency plan?
If I have a problem during a disaster situation, how do I get help?
What should I expect from my local government if a disaster occurs?
What can I do now to be better prepared?
How can I help my city be better prepared to handle emergencies?

Links and Resources

Are you interested in requesting King County Office of Emergency Management resources and materials for a community event? Are you a community group that would like to tour our facility? Would you like a presentation from our office? Just let us know!

Contact information:

		Web	www.metrokc.gov/prepare/preparerespond/
		Call	206-296-3830
		Toll Free	1-800-523-5044
		TTY	206-205-7516
		Fax	206-205-4056
		E-mail	ecc.kc@kingcounty.gov
		Address	King County Office of Emergency Management
			Public Education Program Manager: Timothy Doyle
			Renton, Washington
			Office hours: 8:00 a.m.- 4:30 p.m.