The Palm Beach County Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan Assignment

The Palm Beach County Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan - Assignment Example The National Incident Management System provides a template for the CEMP to follow since it is federally mandated for agencies at all levels of government, based on the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 (HSPD-5). The NIMS has been fully incorporated into all the response and recovery initiatives. The NIMS basically acts as a guideline for the CEMP since new frameworks do not have to be developed (Wilkinson, Lewis and Dennis, 2010). The CEMP developers only need to customize the structure of the NIMS to fit the needs of whatever geographical area they are working on (Chou and Chen, 2013). In this case, the guidelines of the NIMS can be adapted to fit Palm Beach County’s CEMP and work on original plans will be minimal. The CEMP has four essential elements, which are the Basic Plan, Standard Operating Guidelines (SOGs), Emergency Management (EM) Coordinating Procedures, and the Hazard Specific Plans (HSPs). The basic plan provides information on the concept of operations, coordination, control and organizational structure, general purpose, scope and methodology of the plan, and identifies responsibilities of all entities and resources harnessed by the County to help in disaster recovery (Nagar, 2010). SOGs are agency or section-specific and are used by organizations to actualize the purposes, missions, or operations outlined by the complimentary HSPs or Coordinating Procedures (Wilkinson, Lewis and Dennis, 2010). HSPs serve as the foundation for effective response to known hazards and support the incorporation of mitigation into response and recovery operations (Penuel, 2013). The Coordinating Procedures explain by Section, the primary, auxiliary, and coordinating entities, and their roles and responsibilities in the four stages of emergency management. The CEMP covers the following events: vi) Assigning specific and detailed functional duties to