Emergency Planning

Definition

Emergency or contingency planning is the activity aimed at preparing all concerned organizations to face a given crisis when an accident or a natural extreme occurs in a given area, provoking victims, damage, and various degrees of disruption of everyday life. According to Perry and Lindell (2003), emergency planning, training, and exercising are key aspects of emergency preparedness. The latter is to be intended as “the readiness” of social systems and governmental organizations to respond to environmental stress, minimizing negative consequence in terms of health and safety for people and avoiding the breakdown of fundamental community functions. The most important point raised by the two authors refers to the fact that emergency planning must be looked at more like a process rather than a product. Emergency plans, in fact, have to be updated often, according to changes in the environment to be protected, to the kind and severity of threats, to the amount and quality of...