Q: What is Emergency Management?

A: Emergency management is a process that protects communities from hazards or threats to life or property. This process involves four, often overlapping, phases.

• Mitigation is the process of preventing a disaster, or minimizing the negative effects of unavoidable disasters. (Enforcing building codes, building levees to protect potential flood zones, etc.)

• Preparedness involves actions taken prior to a disaster that facilitate a better response. (Training, developing plans, and acquiring resources to aid in response)

• Response is the actual action taken during or immediately following a disaster to protect life and property. (Firefighters responding to a wildfire)

• Recovery is the long-term process of restoring a community to the same conditions that existed prior to an emergency or better. (Rebuilding damaged structures)

The Salt Lake County Emergency Management Bureau coordinates the development and implementation of a countywide emergency management program designed to protect life and property. The Bureau maintains an Emergency Operations Plan that establishes how the community will respond to disasters. This comprehensive plan addresses all hazards (both natural and man-made) through all four phases of emergency management.

The Emergency Management staff responsibilities include:

• Effective contingency planning
  
• Maintaining the operational readiness of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) (see photo below)
  
• Maintaining current computer systems, telephones and other communication equipment, emergency management software programs and other information-based planning equipment.
  
• Assisting other organizations prepare their disaster plans in accordance with state and federal standards
  
• Involving other agencies and jurisdictions in training and simulated disasters to exercise their collective response
  
• Distributing emergency information to the public
  
• Managing the Tier II Program, mandated by the federal government in 1989, under the S.A.R.A. law

The staff takes pride in the important work they do for the citizens of Salt Lake County.

Q: Just what is an Emergency Operations Center (EOC), and how does it affect me?

A: Salt Lake County citizens are fortunate to have an EOC that is staffed with well-trained personnel from the County Emergency Management Bureau. The Salt Lake County EOC also houses other Unified Fire Authority divisions and the Unified Police Department's Dispatch Center.

The EOC's main function is to become the center for coordination of response, resources, and recovery activities, should a man-made or natural disaster occur within the county or across the state and nation. We are ready to staff the EOC on a 24/7 basis. Numerous back-up systems are in place to maintain operability even during major disasters.

Under a non-emergency event, the EOC is staffed during the normal business week. We have Duty Officers on-call 24 hours a day.

The EOC is a secure building, which means that visitors must sign-in at the front-desk, wear visible identification at all times, and be escorted through the building.

Many rooms in the EOC are designed and equipped for specific emergency functions, such as:

• Coordination: collecting and analyzing data
  
• Operations: coordination for responding agencies (fire, law enforcement, public works etc.)
  
• Policy: elected officials and policy makers
  
• Joint Information Center: public information and media releases.

Representatives from various agencies will report to the appropriate location during an emergency. However, the EOC also serves as a location for many other functions, including training, planning, and other meetings.

The EOC can optimize communication and coordination by effective information management and presentation. EOC and operational staff utilize the Incident Command System (ICS) to maintain a standardized operational structure. This provides a useful and flexible management system that is adaptable to incidents involving multi-jurisdictional or multi-disciplinary responses, as it provides the flexibility needed to rapidly activate and establish an organizational format around the functions that need to be performed.

The management of response and recovery operations involves a tremendous amount of information. A strong information management system is essential. The EOC serves as a location where officials and responders collect this information to manage and control response activities. Typically, the information flow would follow this order of performance:

1.  An incident occurs,
2.  Notification is sent to staff,
3.  Status is evaluated by EOC Managers,
4.  EOC is activated,
5.  Incident log is opened,
6.  Standard Operating Procedures are implemented,
7.  Tasks are assigned according to the Emergency Operations Plan,
8.  Resources are allocated,
9.  Tasks are performed,
10.Status briefings and updates given to stakeholders.

Working together during smaller emergencies, each agency in county government performs its specialized tasks according to the agency's in-house Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). During major emergencies, however, there is an increased need to coordinate all activities relevant to the emergency response as they relate to the event as a whole. This operation takes place at the County EOC.

The Emergency Support Function (ESF) concept was developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the late 1980s to address the potential management concerns that would be necessary to coordinate a federal response to a catastrophic earthquake in California.  FEMA subsequently implemented the ESF concept in the development of its National Response Framework.

Emergency Support Functions – Concept of Operations

Each ESF Group is composed of a lead agency and one or more support agencies based on similar activities performed by those agencies. The lead agency is responsible for the coordination of the ESF group as a whole; individual agencies perform their emergency missions as they otherwise would, except that they are being coordinated by the lead agency.

Each agency is responsible for developing its own respective plans and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for use in deploying that agency's assets and resources in times of emergency. The lead agency, however, is also responsible for the following:

• Coordinating the development of an ESF SOP that governs the functions of the various organizations assigned to that ESF during activation. 
  
• Conducting planning sessions during non-emergency periods for the purpose of developing policies, plans, and procedures for coordinating the county-level response to a disaster (with respect to that particular ESF). 
  
• During emergency activation, coordinating the flow of messages into and out of the ESF group, providing direction and control for the ESF group, and coordinating the activities of that ESF with the activities of other ESF groups.
  
• Compiling documentation relative to the ESF group's activities during the emergency.
  
• Emergency Support Functional Annex Structure
  
• The County Emergency Operationst Plan contains an annex for each of the ESFs. These documents specify the roles of the lead and support agencies for each ESF, the range of activities that may be tasked to that ESF, what is expected to occur and how the ESF group is expected to do it.
  
• Incident Command System (ICS)
  

Assigning each ESF to one of six primary ICS-based sections or groups allows for utilization and implementation of many ICS concepts within the EOC itself during activation. Agencies with emergency responsibilities are consolidated into ICS sections to maintain an effective span of control.

ESF 1, Transportation
ESF 2, Communications
ESF 3, Public Works and Engineering
ESF 4, Firefighting
ESF 5, Emergency Management
ESF 6, Mass Care, Emergency Assistance, Housing and Human Services
ESF 7, Resource Support
ESF 8, Health and Medical
ESF 9, Search and Rescue
ESF 10, Oil and Hazardous Materials
ESF 11, Agriculture and Natural Resources
ESF 12, Energy
ESF 13, Public Safety and Security
ESF 14, Long-term Community Recovery
ESF 15, External Affairs

The Policy Group may include the following:

• Mayor and Deputy Mayor, County Auditor
  
• Chief Administrative Officer, County Fire Chief
  
• Chief Financial Officer, County Public Information Officer
  
• County Director of Human Services, County Sheriff
  
• County Director of Public Works, County Attorney
  
• Director of Contracts and Procurement
  
• County Director of Community and Support Services
  
• Additional personnel will be assigned to coordinate intelligence information between each ESF and the ESF 5 workgroup. This is to ensure that the ESF 5 workgroup is able to maintain an accurate assessment of the disaster situation and is able to develop short-range and long-range planning guidance.

Storm Ready is a National Weather Service (NWS) program which helps a community become more informed, better prepared, and receive timely information of an impending weather condition.  Severe-weather warnings issued by the NWS may contain critical information which if not immediately heeded, could lead to loss of life. (avalanche, thunder & lightning, flooding, traveling conditions, tornado, etc.) The Storm Ready program requires local government to meet strict requirements.  It is closely checked and monitored by the NWS before a community can be recognized as being Storm Ready. Salt Lake County Emergency Management was recently recognized for becoming a Storm Ready facility