PREPAREDNESS
Agencies test this during exercises to ensure they can work together effectively.
What is operational coordination and interoperability?
The major hazard that often continues after a hurricane weakens inland.
What is flooding?
The first operational priority after receiving intelligence about a possible threat at a major sporting event.
What are threat validation and risk assessment?
The mitigation strategy used when communities restrict development in flood-prone areas.
What is land-use planning and zoning?
These are the first three core messages during any crisis response.
What are “What we know, what we are doing, and what you need to do”?
The incident management structure activated when a jurisdiction shifts from planning into operational response.
What is the Incident Command System (ICS)?
The forecasting tool emergency managers rely on to make timing decisions during uncertain hurricane tracks.
What is the forecast cone?
The ICS structure used to prevent conflict when multiple agencies share stadium security responsibilities.
What is Unified Command?
The structural upgrade that helps buildings survive earthquakes with minimal damage.
What is seismic retrofitting?
The communication principle that keeps spokespersons from guessing or filling gaps when information is still developing.
What is avoid speculation?
The planning concept that keeps essential government functions operating during major disruptions like widespread outages.
What is Continuity of Operations (COOP)?
The coordination failure occurring when neighboring counties issue conflicting evacuation orders.
What is a lack of regional evacuation coordination?
The immediate life-safety danger created by crowd surges at stadium entry gates.
Response: What is a crowd crush?
What is a crowd crush?
The hazard most directly reduced by elevating critical infrastructure above ground level.
What is flood risk?
One informs people about potential threats. The other delivers urgent messages during an active emergency.
What are Risk and Crisis Communications
The planning assumption tested when a county must function for 72 hours without outside assistance.
What is an initial isolation or self-sufficiency period?
The critical dependency that threatens hospitals after they lose grid power during a hurricane.
What are backup power and fuel logistics?
The planning failure exposed when VIP movement interferes with spectator entry flow.
What is inadequate pedestrian separation and zoning?
The type of information used to prioritize repetitive-loss properties in mitigation planning.
What are historical loss and risk data?
One of these describes the messages you want to say, while the other describes what you can say.
What are Key Messages and Talking Points.
The ICS principle missing when agencies fail an exercise because responsibilities and authority are unclear.
What are clearly defined roles and unified command?
The emergency management concept describing cascading disruptions across transportation, fuel, and supply systems after a hurricane.
What is infrastructure interdependency failure?
This coordination challenge occurs when simultaneous incidents occur at venues in different cities.
What is multi-jurisdictional situational awareness?
The long-term risk that increases when mitigation funding disappears after disasters.
What is rebuilding vulnerability instead of resilience?
This is the ability to understand, share, and resonate with the audience's emotions and experiences to build trust and connection.
What is empathy?