Emergency Plan
Ward Council Part

Get Prepared to Manage the First 72 Hours

The Ward Plan

Review for Ward Council

The Ward Council is committed to helping each family weather whatever storms come our way.  They will do this by advanced preparation, example, and timely, coordinated response at the time of an individual family emergency or a large scale disaster.   In a disaster, ministering means helping in a coordinated way. 

The plan is to help as many families as want to be involved  work on basic preparedness steps. Being prepared or even just actively working on being prepared will help each family to feel and be more resilient and self-reliant and closer to the spirit as they prepare together.  When an actual emergency or disaster occurs, the greatest help for yourself and your children is to be able to say “This may be difficult, but we have talked about and made preparations for an emergency, and we can follow our plans and work together and the Lord will be with us.”  Being able to say just this much will help to reduce the trauma and increase the ability to respond in both a mentally healthy and a physically prepared way.

The Area Plan Says:

 Encourage individual and family preparedness

  • Family emergency plan, emergency kits, three month and longer-term food supplies

  • Financial preparedness, including insurance

  • Personal and family safety

  • Personal and family communications plan (an extension of the family emergency plan)

Emergency Plan Step 3
What Is Wanted

Ward/Stake Council Responsibilities During An Emergency

 

1. Determine and report the condition of members and missionaries 

2. Help to locate and reunite family members who have become separated

3. Obtain medical care for those who have been injured or who have other health challenges

4. Coordinate response efforts with civil authorities and community relief organizations.

5. Assess needs and arrange for the supply of basic provisions and services — such as food, temporary shelter, sanitation, and clothing — to members and others

6. Determine and report the condition of Church buildings and properties

ward /Stake Council Responsibilities Prior to an Emergency



1. Designate a Primary and an Alternate central location where council members will gather after an emergency to direct relief efforts. (Proposed: Primary = Bishop's Office, Alternate = Bishop's House)
2. Plan how the council will organize and carry out each of the following:
See Side Bar to the left with a list of 6 items.

The Specifics

Rationale for proposed Structure

It is now time to look at what and how we will organize as a ward council to meet an actual emergency.  Because we live in a small geographical area with many wards and stakes, any large scale disaster that affects most or all of us (multiple wards and stakes) will be directed from higher up than the ward level. However, that organization may not be able to get to us in the first day to three days.  Our organization can  fit in and be coordinated with higher levels of help as they come in. The Bishop (or Stake President) will make some decisions based on the needs of the situation that may change some of what we have planned for; however, having a plan is the start and modifying it as necessary will happen as we execute it in a real situation.  Below this box is a diagram of a proposed organizational chart for the ward. What is assigned to leaders in the ward would depend on what was needed and who was available.  This group is called the Ward Emergency Council.  The organizational chart calls for two EOMs -(  EO – Emergency Operations) managers one on the North End of the ward and one on the South End. With the communications specialist at the North End it would be good to have the Assessment manager (the communications specialist for assessment) at the South End. This gives us easy access from multiple places in the ward to reach key people who could get information to the Bishop either directly or through his EOMs.   

How does the Ward Council Manage the First 72 Hours.

The Ward Leadership Plan

The Bishop will call a Ward Emergency Council Meeting with the Full Ward Council, the Emergency Preparedness Specialist and the Communication Specialist or any sub-part of that group at any time he considers it necessary to review the basic response plan for an emergency.  At the time of an actual emergency he will call together either the whole Emergency Council, or whatever part of it he feels is needed in order to implement a response to an existing  emergency or disaster.  According to the Ward and Stake Emergency Plan that group should have already completed Step 3 of the planning process which is to “Outline Assignments and Procedures.” 

Ward Emergency Plan -Ward Council

Outline of Assignments and Procedures
Step 3

Ward Council Responsibility

The Bishop and Ward Council are responsible for seeing that a ward emergency plan is prepared, explained, implemented and kept current (as directed in the handbook of instructions).  This “Plan” is formulated using the Ward and Stake Emergency Plan Guidelines  to help the ward council develop a plan for the specific needs of a ward (our Ward).  The Basic Plan has been prepared and now needs to be explained, fully implemented and kept current.    That responsibility belongs to the Ward Council. 

Guidelines Here

Plan Prepared

Plan Prepared - Leadership has data for decisions

The Bishop and Ward Council, through him, now have all the “Critical Information” listed in parts 1 and 2 in the Stake and Ward Guidelines in hard copy format.  The Bishop has a copy of this information in a binder that is to be kept at his home.  There is another binder with the same information that is to be kept in the clerk’s office, the Stake has a copy. and the Emergency Preparedness Specialist has a copy.  The data from which this information was derived is in a Spreadsheet in electronic form that is currently kept by the Emergency Preparedness Specialist, who is in the process of teaching other people how to update and manage the data.   Any paper forms like the master maps and the surveys of emergency skills and equipment are also in the possession of the Emergency Preparedness Specialist.

Plan Prepared - Ward divided into Blocks & Captains Assigned.

Plan Prepared - Decision made to focus on Area Plan objectives

The Area Plan presents 4 parts of disaster management:  Preparation, Response, Recovery and Mitigation.   We as a ward have decided to concentrate on the first 2 of these.  Getting the Ward Members and the Ward Leadership prepared using the preparation steps in the Area Plan and then responding to the immediate needs of the first 72 hours and being prepared to receive counsel from higher authorities when they become available.

Plan Explained

Plan Explained - 5th Sunday Presentation May 2018

The Plan was explained in a 5th Sunday Presentation in May of 2018.  Each member family at the presentation and in the building was given a handout about the need for family emergency preparation and introduced to Step 5 of the Guidelines “Encourage Member Preparation”.  They were given information about the block structure with the Captains for the blocks and told basically how that program would work and in what kinds of disasters.  They were introduced to the Ward website GF4prepared.com and told that we would be having a monthly focus to help us all get better prepared which we have done now for 10 months.

Plan Explained - Ward Website

This website was put into service in May of 2018 and has served to help both ward members and the ward leadership understand their roles in an emergency.

Plan Implemented

Explanation of how Plan will be implemented

Plan Implemented - 5th Sunday Presentation Sometime 2019 - Didn't happen - Still being worked on. Below is the proposed implementation.

  • This will be our 2nd 5th Sunday Presentation.  Over one year ago we started this process.  During this 5th Sunday Presentation we will Explain the exact steps that need to be taken in a large scale emergency (how the plan will be implemented) and who is responsible for what including:
  • Bishop – Over All Priesthood Responsibility
  •  Counselors  –  Emergency Operation Managers – one for each end of the ward (or each division) For the first assessment  Block Captains will report to them.  Assessment probably will be an on going need.  Counselors will determine where they are most needed and who the captains report to may change. Will try to get first assessment done using text messaging.
  • Communications Specialist on hand  in the North to expedite and help with problems – May have to use runners. Will counsel with Elders quorum in North end if needed. May be handled by EOMs
  • Assistant Communications specialist or Emergency Preparedness Specialist on hand in the South to expedite and help with problems.  May have to use runners will counsel with Elders quorum in South south end if needed.  May be handled by EOMs
  •  Captains –  are to check on the families in their assigned areas as soon as possible and Captains for Blocks  A ,B, C, D, E and F report to 1st Counselor.  No G yet.  Captains for Blocks H, I, J, K, (No L), M, N and O report to 2nd Counselor.  The First assessment should be completed within 4 to 8 hours of the disaster.  Sooner if possible. 
  • Members – Should be prepared to take care of themselves if necessary for the first 72 hours or evacuate if that is called for.  They should have their phones set up so they can text their block captain about their condition.  See Feb 2018 focus. 

Plan Kept Current

Plan Kept Current - Current Procedure and Outline of Responsibilities

  • Currently this has been partially taken care of by the Ward Emergency Preparedness Person and the Elders Quorum secretary and partially ignored.  This function needs to belong to a member or members of the ward counsel.   If this plan is going to have any kind of an impact on the behavior of the leaders in the ward they have to be involved enough with its maintenance  to understand what is going on and to see it as important.  Only then will the members of the ward see it as important enough to do anything about.  The following needs to be implemented:
  • Clerk Responsibilities — Make sure monthly that all families who move in and move out are added to or subtracted to or from the master database.  This is an easy task if done at the time the records come in and go into the ward records or go out of them and can be added as a task that needs to be checked off for entry or exit of people.  As part of his information gathering for the ward records, each new family should fill out an Emergency Preparedness survey.  Then all data could be entered at the same time (although in two different places).  There are several codes that need to be entered including the Block that they live in.  The emergency preparedness specialist and the clerk should work out a procedure for this.  When it is done all information in the tables associated with master database are updated automatically.  This is the major method for keeping the data up to date. 
  • Emergency Preparedness Person  needs to keep the maps up to date.  This can also be done at entry and exit from the ward or anytime thereafter.  The address has to be verified and mapped anyway.  Putting it on the Master maps is done by hand so that no address data is transferred from the church records to the map.   These maps are not only used by the Bishop but also by the Captains of each block so that when we do an assessment we can know if everyone has been accounted for or where to look for families who are not accounted for.
  • Missionaries that are living in our ward are aware that they have to call and report any changes to the Emergency Preparedness person.  That data is then entered into the spreadsheet.
  • Bishop, RS President, and Elders President – Twice a year go over the entire database (it can easily be printed out by the clerk) and make sure the codes are still valid.  They must understand what the codes are and why they are used.  
  • Since the purpose of all this data gathering is to have it available in an emergency and it may not be, if the power is out, a schedule of when to printout updated reports needs to be decided on.  Right now it seems to be happening quarterly.  Except for missionaries that my be a good schedule.  When missionaries change, their new data should be printed out and put in the binders right away.