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Coordinating: Conducting Emergency Operations

Each organization and individual participating in emergency planning and response efforts should be assigned a position in an organizational structure that has clear reporting and decisionmaking responsibilities. It is important to identify:

• Who makes critical decisions at certain points in the organization
• How these decisions will be communicated and delegated regarding implementation
• How information should be communicated in the organizational hierarchy

A clear management system allows all partners to function together, rather than in a fragmented manner.

Some of these reporting structures may exist in the organizations that make up your community’s emergency planning and response efforts. Your Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) unit, for example, will have its own organizational structure addressing its direct responsibility and scope of operations. However, the overall community will need to adopt a system that integrates these components so they can collaborate during the planning, implementation, and post-response activities phases of a response effort.

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Last Updated on 8/18/2006