Title
Approval of Ordinance Adopting the City of Olympia Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan
Recommended Action
Committee Recommendation:
Not referred to a committee.
City Manager Recommendation:
Move to approve on second reading the ordinance adopting the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan and authorize the City Attorney to sign the letter of promulgation.
Report
Issue:
Emergency management in Olympia is defined and described in the City of Olympia, Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP). The CEMP was updated, portions re-written and the format changed to better match State and federal guidelines. The final step in the process is for the City Council to approve and the Mayor to sign the new plan.
Staff Contact:
Greg Wright, Deputy Fire Chief, 360.753.8466
Presenter(s):
Greg Wright, Deputy Fire Chief
Patrick Knouff, Public Works
Background and Analysis:
The background and analysis have not changed from first to second reading.
The current CEMP was outdated and due for an update. The material was largely accurate, but its ability to interoperate with State and Federal emergency plans due to differences in formatting needed to be addressed. Patrick Knouff, currently with the City’s Public Works Department, researched, re-wrote, re-formatted, and completed a new version of the CEMP.
As per State guidance, the draft plan was reviewed first by subject matter experts in the City’s Emergency Management work group (EMCommittee).The CEMP is a very operational document, so experts from each department were used to ensure that the details recorded would be an accurate representation of the response taken in large, complex events.
After review by the EMCommittee, the CEMP was sent to the State for review. The State’s review considers a CEMP’s “consistency with the National Response Framework, the National Incident Management System, and the Washington State Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, while complying with the content requirements of Chapter 118-30-060 WAC and Chapter 38.52.070 RCW.” The State responded that Olympia’s “CEMP and Emergency Support Functions meet the standards in most areas and exceed (the standard) in others”. They also included a worksheet of areas that could be improved and those suggestions were incorporated wherever possible in our final version of the CEMP.
Obviously, not every possible situation and/or outcome can be anticipated, so the CEMP is written using the industry standard, “All-Hazard” approach. All-Hazard is just as it sounds - it is a document designed to describe how City departments work together and interact with outside resources to tackle problems created by any emergency or disaster. You will not find specific instructions on how the City will respond to an earthquake, for example, but what you will see is a description of how the Public Works Department will interface with the Fire Department, the Emergency Management work group in the EOC, and outside resources to handle problems associated with disruptions to City infrastructure following an emergency or disaster situation.
This approach is superior in its ability to match the specific details of the situation being encountered, for example road damage in the downtown, with a corrective action. Those corrective actions are not dependent on the cause of the road damage; they are dependent on the damage incurred and the needs of the community. This flexible approach is the standard of the Emergency Management profession.
Neighborhood/Community Interests (if known):
N/A
Options:
1. Move to approve on second reading the ordinance adopting the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan and authorize the City Attorney to sign the promulgation letter.
2. Do not approve the CEMP.
Financial Impact:
None directly but the new, updated version of the CEMP is a tool used by the City to respond and recover from emergencies. The CEMP is a critical document for the response and is also used in the cost recovery phase of an emergency. This newly formatted and updated CEMP provides assistance and guidance to the City in both situations.
Note: Once the plan is approved, hard copies will be distributed as needed and the document will then be made available on-line, a convenience that was not possible with the previous version.