Attachment 1

Worksheet: Guidelines and Background Information for Emergency Operations Plans

When examining these questions, remember to keep in mind that your facility was closed unexpectedly for one, three and seven days.  Assume emergency power sources are operating, but also plan for loss of power. 

Under Item 1. List Essential Activities and Functions: Identification of essential activities and functions that must be performed by or at the location, based on the minimum essential research, facility operations and administrative duties.  Describe procedures for building re-entry for essential personnel on the three and seven day plan. Information must include both mission and administrative functions.

Assume access to the facility is limited or not allowed at all. Identify Standard Operating Procedures for securing laboratories, chemical, biological inventories, and experiments in progress. 

As an example: One day interruption : Update and use Occupant Emergency Evacuation Plan and/or Hazardous Weather Closure Procedures.
Reasoning: Experiments in progress can be shut down for a day with no consequence.  Facility can adequately be maintained overnight or for this time period.

Three day and beyond: Describe the protection and short term care of research, facility maintenance, and critical administrative functions that must occur.

Examples include: Minimal faculty operations that support research/life such as water treatment systems, quarantine/containment rooms, greenhouse plant materials:  Time sensitive harvesting, farm security, livestock, aquatic life support, maintenance of sub-zero freezers, some outer buildings must remain powered, etc.

Administrative examples include securing communications such as e-mail, voice contact, and fax.  SOPs for processing time sheets off site.

Under Item 2.  Essential positions to support the essential activities and functions listed in Item 1:  Please note that this covers both mission and facility related positions.  Items one and two can be combined in a table.  Refer to template example.  Most of these employees,  institutions, and emergency support personnel are already identified in current emergency plans.   

Under Item 3. Vital Records, Systems, Equipment:  Identification and protection of vital records, files, systems, and equipment, including ability to access and use such records, systems, and equipment to perform essential activities and functions.  Vital records and systems include those necessary to implement the Emergency Operations Plans. 
 
Examples:  Protection of the access and actual access to systems such as communications, administrative files, Microsoft Access,  protected access to scientific instrumentation, protection of research resources such as chemical, radiological, biological inventories.

Item 4. Order of Succession:  Include the current order of automatic succession
from the head of the location/facility and for key management positions responsible for
directional functions of the organization covered by the plan.  Include both administrative and research personnel.  Refer to template for examples. 

Item 5. Delegation of Authority:  Include any pre‑determined limited delegations of authority in the event of an interruption of normal operations.  Include sufficient information for contacting  automatic successors and those with limited delegations of authority during duty and non‑duty hours.  Refer to template for an example.

Examples include: Successor 1 is Station manager or Center Director who has responsibility for initiating plan, final decisions on relocation personnel, etc...     

Item 6. Primary and Secondary points of contacts:  This is a consolidated list that may include all of the contact lists noted above. Include emergency contact agencies, include a back- up person for each area. List methods of contacting employees for daily update of location emergency information.

Identify:  Key officials, emergency contacts (fire EPA, LEPC), Rosters (defined as‑listing of all employees with duties and responsibilities along with information on how to reach them during duty and non‑duty hours.

Examples include:   Call tree for location employees and other necessary parties, pre-recorded instructions used as part of a call-in messaging system. Identify a key person who is assigned responsibility for media communication. This information can be provided in an organizational format that best suits location.

If you need any assistance, please feel free to contact Bonnie DiSalvo, Glen Davis, or Kathie Moh