Function: Community Outreach
Your facility's relationship with the community will influence your ability to protect personnel and property and return to normal operations.
This section describes ways to involve outside organizations in the emergency management plan.
Function: Community Outreach
Other Functions
- Function: Direction and Control
- Function: Communications
- Function: Life Safety
- Function: Property Protection
- Function: Recovery and Restoration
- Function: Administration and Logistics
Involving the Community
Maintain a dialogue with community leaders, first responders, government agencies, community organizations and utilities, including:
- Appointed and elected leaders
- Fire, police and emergency medical services personnel
- Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) members
- Emergency management director
- Public Works Department
- American Red Cross
- Hospitals
- Telephone company
- Electric utility
- Neighborhood groups
Have regular meetings with community emergency personnel to review emergency plans and procedures. Talk about what you're doing to prepare for and prevent emergencies. Explain your concern for the community's welfare.
Identify ways your facility could help the community in a community-wide emergency.
Look for common interests and concerns. Identify opportunities for sharing resources and information.
Conduct confidence-building activities such as facility tours. Do a facility walk-through with community response groups.
Involve community fire, police and emergency management personnel in drills and exercises.
Meet with your neighbors to determine how you could assist each other in an emergency.
Mutual Aid Agreements
To avoid confusion and conflict in an emergency, establish mutual aid agreements with local response agencies and businesses.
These agreements should:
- Define the type of assistance
- Identify the chain of command for activating the agreement
- Define communications procedures
Include these agencies in facility training exercises whenever possible.
Mutual aid agreements can address any number of activities or resources that might be needed in an emergency. For example:
- Providing for firefighting and HAZMAT response.
- Providing shelter space, emergency storage, emergency supplies, medical support.
- Businesses allowing neighbors to use their property to account for personnel after an evacuation.
Community Service
In community-wide emergencies, business and industry are often needed to assist the community with:
- Personnel
- Equipment
- Shelter
- Training
- Storage
- Feeding facilities
- EOC facilities
- Food, clothing, building materials
- Funding
- Transportation
While there is no way to predict what demands will be placed on your company's resources, give some thought to how the community's needs might influence your corporate responsibilities in an emergency. Also, consider the opportunities for community service before an emergency occurs.
Public Information
When site emergencies expand beyond the facility, the community will want to know the nature of the incident, whether the public's safety or health is in danger, what is being done to resolve the problem and what was done to prevent the situation from happening.
Determine the audiences that may be affected by an emergency and identify their information needs. Include:
- The public
- The media
- Employees and retirees
- Unions
- Contractors and suppliers
- Customers
- Shareholders
- Emergency response organizations
- Regulatory agencies
- Appointed and elected officials
- Special interest groups
- Neighbors
The community wants to know:
- What does the facility do?
- What are the hazards?
- What programs are in place to respond to emergencies?
- How could a site emergency affect the community?
- What assistance will be required from the community?
Media Relations
In an emergency, the media are the most important link to the public. Try to develop and maintain positive relations with media outlets in your area. Determine their particular needs and interests. Explain your plan for protecting personnel and preventing emergencies.
Determine how you would communicate important public information through the media in an emergency. Designate a trained spokesperson and an alternate spokesperson. Set up a media briefing area. Establish security procedures. Establish procedures for ensuring that information is complete, accurate and approved for public release. Determine an appropriate and useful way of communicating technical information. Prepare background information about the facility.
When providing information to the media during an emergency:
Do's
Give all media equal access to information.
- Give all media equal access to information.
- When appropriate, conduct press briefings and interviews. Give local and national media equal time.
- Try to observe media deadlines.
- Escort media representatives to ensure safety.
- Keep records of information released.
- Provide press releases when possible.
Don'ts
- Do not speculate about the incident.
- Do not permit unauthorized personnel to release information.
- Do not cover up facts or mislead the media.
- Do not place blame for the incident.
Press releases about facility-generated emergencies should describe who is involved in the incident and what happened, including when, where, why and how.
Last Modified: Tuesday, 21-Mar-2006 08:36:46 EST