Municipal Preparedness and Emergency Response

Newton is not as prepared as we should be to respond to a natural disaster, terrorist attack, disease outbreak, or other emergency. We should develop and promulgate an emergency response and communication plan with the following components:

• clear lines of communication;
• pre-positioning of emergency supplies and medicines in strategic locations throughout the city; and
• planned evacuation routes in case a portion of the city is not safe.

The communication plan should include channels of communication with state emergency responders and response teams in neighboring cities and towns, so that we can coordinate efforts effectively. It should also incorporate direct lines of communication with state and local public health officials, so that vaccine, treatment, and other contagion-related information can be distributed quickly and accurately. The plan should also include secondary and tertiary communication channels, in case primary channels, such as phone, email, and radio, are not functioning.

The most important aspect of emergency response planning is to make sure that everyone who has a role in the plan or may be able to assist in implementation of the plan is familiar with the plan and has access to it. That means that every municipal department, school, library and other public building should have a printed copy of the plan available and all city employees should be briefed on how they should respond in case of an emergency.

In addition to initial training of relevant personnel, periodic drills are essential to working out implementation challenges and maintaining knowledge of the emergency response plan.