CSEPP: Community Plans
Emergency planning takes into account the potential needs of the public, special populations, and individuals in your community. Plans must be made to protect schoolchildren, patients confined to hospitals, non-English speaking persons, retirement center residents, disabled or mobility-impaired individuals and even those who may be visiting or traveling through the community. The provision of maximum protection for the public is the shared goal of CSEPP planners at all levels.
Each community makes emergency plans based on its own unique needs and considerations. Planners consider the specific agents stored at the nearby installation, potential stockpile accidents that could put the off-post community at risk, various weather conditions, terrain, road systems, and other site-specific factors. Computers help community leaders evaluate and select the best protective measures for specific accident situations. Communities test their plans in periodic exercises to ensure that all contingencies have been considered.
In the unlikely event of an actual chemical agent emergency at a stockpile site, Army hazard analysts on post will rapidly provide information (such as the agent involved and wind direction and speed) to local officials. Using sophisticated computer systems and scientific models, Army hazard analysts will transmit further detailed information, hazard projections, and protective action recommendations to the surrounding community's emergency managers. Using this information and their emergency plans, your community's officials will decide what protective actions to recommend to you and your neighbors. Local emergency managers at a county emergency operations center (EOC) would manage response operations and work closely with Army, state, and federal officials throughout the incident to ensure that the public is protected. In an EOC, representatives of every agency from animal control to the water & sewer department work together to protect the public and ensure that proper response actions occur.
Last Modified: Tuesday, 28-Mar-2006 11:30:15 EST