Community Emergency Planning in NYC - A Toolkit for Community Leaders

Community Emergency Response

Now that you have an understanding of how hazards may impact the city and have built a strong network of partners, focus on developing the strategies that your community can use in a response. Your emergency plan will be all-hazards, meaning that it will focus on managing the impacts of events and can be implemented for all different types of emergencies.

Remember, the goals of your response should be to effectively communicate, identify needs, and connect people to resources.

IN THIS SECTION:

1. Emergency Communications

2. Needs and Resource Assessments

3. Connecting People to Resources: Working with Volunteers and Creating a Space

7. EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

OBJECTIVE:

• Identify strategies for effective communication during emergencies, including which sources of information you will use to communicate.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

Provide accurate information by using official sources. During emergencies, false information spreads for several reasons:

• Unconfirmed information gets passed by word-of-mouth.

• Unclear information gets miscommunicated.

• The situation changes so frequently that information quickly becomes outdated.

TO DO:

1. Use the following questions to get a sense of what your potential strategies would be during a emergency:

   • What are the best ways to reach residents in your community?

   • Which languages would you need to provide information in?

   • Which network members are regularly in contact with community members? e.g. congregations, daycare centers, tenant associations

   • Which members have the skills and staff to run a communications operation or information hub?

   • How will you communicate if there is no power or if phone lines are down?

2. Review the communications chart in your plan. Fill in potential strategies and point people to carry out emergency communications during an emergency.

DID YOU KNOW?

Notify NYC is the City’s official source for information about emergency events and services. New York City Emergency Management’s Watch Command team monitors emergency activity throughout the city 24/7 through 911 dispatches, information feeds from regional emergency operations centers, the FAA, MTA, the Port Authority and many other federal, state, and local agencies. When an emergency has the potential to affect a significant number of New Yorkers, Watch Command uses Notify NYC to inform the public.

8. NEEDS + RESOURCES ASSESSMENT

OBJECTIVE:

• Identify strategies for assessing needs and identifying locally available resources before, during, and after an emergency.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

Depending on the type and severity of the emergency, needs may vary throughout your community. For example, a hurricane may lead to the need for clean up or rebuild operations, but a blizzard may lead to the need for a volunteers to shovel sidewalks and hydrants.

After an emergency there may be resources coming from various levels of government, relief organizations, as well as community partners. Your network can play an important role in collecting and organizing information about what resources are available.

One of the key roles your network can play is to identify unmet needs and communicate them to people and organizations that may be able to help, such as City agencies, local elected representatives, and relief organizations.

How can your network effectively conduct assessments? Think about tools like the resource directory and the communications strategies you have already developed and how they can be helpful.

TO DO:

1. Review the needs and resource assessment charts in the plan template. What strategies would you use to conduct a needs assessment? What about a resource assessment?

2. Record any strategies or point people you may refer to to carry out these assessments. 

9. CONNECT PEOPLE TO RESOURCES

1. WORKING WITH VOLUNTEERS

OBJECTIVES:

• Identify functions before, during, and after an emergency that could be performed by volunteers.

• Identify volunteer groups in your community or citywide that you may be able to connect with.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

Many people want to help after an emergency and volunteers can be a great way to connect people to goods and services (think: distributing food/water, canvassing/flyering, clean up, etc.).

Some response operations require technical expertise and are only suitable for trained volunteers. Be familiar with the type of volunteers you’re working with as well as common requirements needed for different types of operations.

Follow these best practices for organizing volunteers:

• Assign team leaders who have experience managing volunteers.

• Have defined tasks.

• Make volunteer groups that are manageable in size.

• Match projects with volunteer group strengths (e.g. language expertise).

• Use t-shirts, vests or some kind of marker to identify groups or tasks.

• Provide leaders and their groups with appropriate materials for their task.

TO DO:

1. Identify local volunteer resources and add them to your resource directory.

2. Find the CERT in your area and connect with it. Email cert@oem.nyc.gov to contact your CERT’s Team Chief. 

2. CREATING A SPACE

OBJECTIVES:

• Identify operations in your plan that may need a physical space.

• Identify spaces in your community that may be used before, during, and after an emergency.

• Learn what to look for when considering including a physical space in your plan.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

What are some ways your community may use a space before, during, and after an emergency?

Before (preparedness):

• Host preparedness events

• Conduct outreach

• Build visibility

• Create hub for posting resources and information

After (response):

• Information hub

• Point for collecting/distributing goods

• Volunteer reception site

TO DO:

Refer to the maps that you have included in your plan. Maps can be very helpful in identifying spaces that are spread out throughout your community. Look for spaces that are out of potentially dangerous areas (such as evacuation zones) and that are central to the population you serve.

Using your plan and maps think about what operations you may want to activate during a response and identify spaces that would work. Add them to your resource directory.

Consider the following questions:

• Is the space ADA-accessible?

• Is it a familiar space to people in your community?

• How many people can it hold?

• Who owns it? Would the owner be open to joining your emergency network?