CA-ARES Planned Responses

Planned Responses to Emergency Events

As Dwight D. Eisenhower warned “plans are useless, planning is indispensable.”[3]  The truth in this hyperbole is that no plan is perfect, the map is not the territory, surprise is inevitable, we must be prepared to pivot.  Planning up front isn’t only about making a plan.  It’s about learning, awareness, and practice; so we can identify options, understand feedback, and deal with disruption.  Improvisation favors the prepared mind and body.

– Morville, Peter Stuart. Planning for Everything: The Design of Paths and Goals. Semantic Studios. ©2018. Kindle Edition.

[3] Quoted in Six Crises.  [Doubleday, ©1962] by Richard M Nixon.

• Capital Area ARES^® Operations Plan
• New Hampshire ARES^® Emergency Operations Plan
• New Hampshire ARES^® Organization & Administration Plan
• New Hampshire State Emergency Operations Plan (SEOP) Base Plan [PDF]
  • ESF 2: Communications and Alerting Annex [PDF]

An essential part of preparing for a disaster or emergency is planning.  Part of planning is to imagine what events could happen, decide whether you want to have a planned response to each event, then make a plan for what you may do.  On a regular basis, practice the plan to test the responses to discover missing parts of the response and to ‘wire it in’.  It’s helpful to have multiple plans. 

FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) has created an Incident Command System (ICS) framework for planning, executing, and reporting, which is supported by a series of forms.  The forms we use most often are the following.

• ICS-205 Incident Radio Communications Plan: 
  

  Purpose.  The Incident Radio Communications Plan (ICS 205) provides information on all radio frequency or trunked radio system talkgroup assignments for each operational period.  The plan is a summary of information obtained about available radio frequencies or talkgroups and the assignments of those resources by the Communications Unit Leader for use by incident responders.  Information from the Incident Radio Communications Plan on frequency or talkgroup assignments is normally placed on the Assignment List (ICS 204).

• ICS-205A Communications List, a simplified version of the ICS-205:
  

  Purpose.  The Communications List (ICS 205A) records methods of contact for incident personnel.  While the Incident Radio Communications Plan (ICS 205) is used to provide information on all radio frequencies down to the Division/Group level, the ICS 205A indicates all methods of contact for personnel assigned to the incident (radio frequencies, phone numbers, pager numbers, etc.), and functions as an incident directory.

• ICS-213 General Message:
  

  Purpose.  The General Message (ICS 213) is used by the incident dispatchers to record incoming messages that cannot be orally transmitted to the intended recipients.  The ICS 213 is also used by the Incident Command Post and other incident personnel to transmit messages (e.g., resource order, incident name change, other ICS coordination issues, etc.) to the Incident Communications Center for transmission via radio or telephone to the addressee.  This form is used to send any message or notification to incident personnel that requires hard-copy delivery.

• ICS-214 Activity Log: 
  

  Purpose.  The Activity Log (ICS 214) records details of notable activities at any ICS level, including single resources, equipment, Task Forces, etc.  These logs provide basic incident activity documentation, and a reference for any after-action report.

To respond to an event, you must be able to detect it; you need to be “situationally aware”.  In the table below, the Actor is an agreed, trusted source of information.  The Event/Trigger is an action by the Actor to communicate the situation that will be Detected By the Responder.  Members of CA-ARES may or may not be part of the response, but are not ‘first responders’ in their role as supporting communicators/message handlers.