Essential Teams and Personnel

Scope and Applicability of COOP Plan

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Scope

Elements of the Town and Time COOP is Effected

This COOP plan stipulates the strategies that should be used to promote the continuity of operations in case a disaster strikes Membley town. The elements that are affected by the COOP plan include the provision of healthcare services, management, and leadership of the town and affecting the normal operations of the town. Thus, the COOP plan addresses any disaster that affects the normal operation in the town such as fire, natural disasters, terrorism, among others. The COOP plan is effected if the normal operations of the town are affected. That is because if any disaster occurs, the emergency department is responsible for implementing the strategies that will return everything to normalcy.

Components covered in the COOP plan

The COOP has various components. The main components are the introduction, purpose, authorities and references, policies, scope and applicability, objectives, concepts of operations, essential functions, and responsibilities and procedures to b followed.

Distribution of COOP plan

The COOP plan is distributed to all the departments and especially critical departments in the town. It is also distributed to the leadership and government of the town. That ensures that the critical departments and the leaders are conversant with the COOP plan (Whitehead et al., 2017). Thus, it is easier for the relevant teams and personnel to implement it in case a disaster occurs as well as follow-through and perform their roles and responsibilities diligently.

COOP Capability

This COOP has the capability of being activated within 12 hours after any of the listed disaster has occurred in Membley town. It can also be sustainable for up to 30 days when any of the disasters persists. After any of the disasters listed occurs, the relevant emergency departments are notified by the emergency call center. That enables all the emergency management teams to respond to the disaster in the most effective and relevant way. Additionally, the emergency department of Membley town has enough resources that can be used to initiate the COOP plan as other resources are being sourced from other places to support the continuity of the COOP plan. That ensures that the viable COOP plan is activated as soon as possible after a disaster strikes the town.

The emergency department has teams on standby at each moment. Additionally, the personnel n the emergency departments have been provided with premises where they can live with their families to assure their availability. Thus, they can be called upon when an emergency strikes and respond within a minimum time frame. That indicates that the COOP plan can be activated during duty and nonduty hours (Griego et al., 2020). It can also be activated with and without warning as the team is always ready. To enable the COOP plan to be sustainable for 30 days, the emergency department of Membley town has some offs site facilities where significant operations can continue before the disaster is dealt with. Additionally, if the resources available are not enough, the emergency department has entered into a partnership with the neighboring towns and it can source some of the resources from the towns to ensure that the COOP plan lasts for up to a month.

Most Critical Departments

Various critical departments are located in Membley town. The five most critical departments that are located in the town are local government critical personnel, law enforcement officers, fire and rescue department, Computer and IT dispatch systems, and Membley’s town emergency response center and facilities. The five most critical departments will be used in different ways to sustain the operations. The fire department will be required to dispatch firemen and fire trucks to deal with any fire incidences that may occur in the town. The role and responsibilities of the fire and rescue department include rescuing and protecting people in the event of a fire, road traffic collision, and other emergencies, protecting property in the case of fire, and sending out fire trucks to extinguish fires. Law enforcement officers are greatly significant in the case of emergencies and disasters. They are responsible for maintaining law and order in the town, assuring the citizens living in the town as well as investigating the causes of the disasters to enable mitigate them in the future.

The local government critical personnel include healthcare workers, first responders, food and agriculture employees, energy sector employees among others. There have different roles depending on the departments that they work in. However, the major role of critical employees is to help and rescue people in case of a disaster. The most relevant critical personnel in all the cases are the healthcare practitioners (Hanwacker, 2018). Additionally, the critical personnel involves the leaders in the town which should assure the people as well as provide direction on the next actions that should be conducted following the advice of the emergency department. The computer and IT dispatch systems department is involved if a disaster requires new networks to facilitate working in the town. The emergency department collaborates with the other critical departments to ensure that COOP is achieved successfully.

Applicability

Alternative Locations

Membley’s town emergency department has several alternative locations that can be used for the continuation of the activities by the critical and key staff and technical personnel. It has a bunker that may be used for communication and providing healthcare services to the affected people. The healthcare facility in the bunker has 500 beds. At each particular time, the resources in the bunker can be used for up to 30 days before being depleted. Additionally, it has other locations out of town where the town’s government leaders can continue their operations safely, an emergency healthcare facility out of town with over 1000 beds. It also has stations for law enforcement officers and an area that the people can be relocated to if a disaster becomes worse.

Temporary work procedures

The COOP mentions and outlines the temporary work procedures. These are the work procedures that are implemented to ensure continuity of the services that are provided to the residents of the town in case a disaster strikes (Hong & Jeong, 2020). The temporary work procedures are activated if the continuity of the provision of the services is affected. They are carried out in alternate locations. The emergency department has vessels of transport that ferry people to alternate locations.

Delegation of Authorities

During a disaster, the emergency task force which is identified in the COOP assumes the authority. Although the task force is below the government of the town, it is in charge of advising the government on the best practices to be carried out. The task force has a member from all the critical departments to promote its diversity and positive impact.

Alternate locations and Continuity of Management and Decision Making

The alternate locations that can be used by the local government officials include the bunker identified earlier and a location out of town. The bunker can only be used for a short period of time whereas the location out of ton can be used for a longer period until everything returns to normalcy (Jingye & Takehiro, 2016). In case the town’s senior and technical personnel are unavailable, the emergency task force will take over leadership to ensure the continuity of management and decision-making. The task force should choose a person that will head the town until the senior management or technical team returns.

References

Griego, A. L., Flores, A. B., Collins, T. W., & Grineski, S. E. (2020). Social vulnerability, disaster assistance, and recovery: A population-based study of Hurricane Harvey in Greater Houston, Texas. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 51. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101766

Hanwacker, L. S. (2018). Continuity of operations plans: Simple or detailed? Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, 12(2), 133–149.

Hong, J. D., & Jeong, K. Y. (2020). Cross-evaluation based super efficiency DEA approach to designing disaster recovery center location-allocation-routing network schemes. Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management. 10(4), 485–508. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1108/JHLSCM-03-2020-0019

Jingye, L., & Takehiro, T. (2016). Practical Process for Introducing Smart Business Continuity Management of Smart City in Japan. Procedia Engineering, 146, 288–295. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2016.06.390

Whitehead, M., Shahidullah, J., Kettlewell, P., Quinlan, N., & Strony, R. (2017). An empirical approach to assessing training needs for emergency department management of intentional self-harm and related behaviors in the United States. Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions, 14, 30. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.3352/jeehp.2017.14.30