I have put my post below, as well as my Professor post. I need to someone to provide a response to my Professor questions in regards to my post.

My Professor Reply:

But do the issues in organization and proper emphasis of planning go beyond how well the Emergency Operations Plan was ‘set up’ or organized? My point – even were the plan well developed – would it have been executable without clear organizational alignment and proper jurisdictional leadership emphasis?

My Initial post

Hello Class,

The biggest issue I see with the Smith Hill case study is how poorly they have set up their EOP in an event of an emergency disaster. Smith Hill is a small town, with a small budget, but having a sounder plan in case of an emergency is something every city or town should invest money into. They had a plan on what to do in case of an emergency but they had no clearly defined roles, no back up plans in case a hospital gets overwhelmed, and a mutual aid agreement with other local governments that they did not even know about.

The suburb of Smith Hill should have implemented a local emergency management committee (LEMC) to be able to allocate and make a good EOP, so this small town will be more prepared and recover quicker from an emergency disaster. “The emergency planning process consist of five principle functions: planning activities, team climate development, situation analysis, resource acquisition, and strategic choice.” (Lindell, Prater, Perry, & Nicholson, 2006) It seems like Smith Hill suffered greatly on the team climate development and planning activities. Resource acquisition should also be a top priority for such a small town. Having mutual aid from other towns or from the state/federal level is very important to return Smith Hill to normal operations, especially with a low budget.

The fire department and police department are the best local government management agencies (LEMA) to help the city in a time of crisis. Day in and day out, they practice scene management whether it is a domestic violence call dealing with a small amount of people, all the way up to a full-blown house fire or an act of terrorism. They work hand in hand with each other to mitigate and help fix the situation. A clear plan should be laid out showing what their roles are in a city-wide emergency. Also, knowing the capacity of hospitals, what resources are available in the hospital and to what other hospital nearby can accept patients as well. Agencies can get overwhelm quickly, so having mutual aid and understanding of who and what goes where can help a city have a successful emergency management organization.

Reference

Lindell, M.K., Prater, C.S., & Perry, R.W. (2006). Fundamentals of emergency management. Retrieved from https://training.fema.gov/hiedu/aemrc/booksdownloa…