Massachusetts Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan PDF Download

The Emergency Management Team for the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts, does not have clear guidelines as to how to handle large scale events and how to operate their Emergency Operations Center (EOC). The problem is that the Town of Amherst does not have a written comprehensive Emergency Preparedness plan to manage events that negatively impact the entire community. The purpose of this research is to evaluate how a major event (a snowstorm with multi-day power outages) was handled three years ago by the town's Emergency Management team. A descriptive research method was used to collect information from key members of the Emergency Management team to determine based on lessons learned from that event what improvements have been made to the town's Emergency preparedness plan and what if any identified improvements are still needed. Questions asked were "What challenges arose during the management pf the October 2011 snowstorm and the days after," "What improvements have been made since then to prevent the same issue from reoccurring,'' and "What issues still need to be addressed in order to prevent problems and properly manage the next large scale event in town?" Interviews were conducted with key members of the town's Emergency Management Team to better understand how the 2011 storm was handled and what the team is doing now to prepare for the next event. Best practices used in other similar sized communities and national standards were researched for guidance. A clear list of short comings and issues faced by the Emergency Management team during the 2011 storm became apparent. Definitive improvements to correct some of those identified issues were presented, while other issues are still clearly unresolved. Recommendations are presented to complete the process of making improvements to the town's Emergency preparedness ability to address all of the issues identified after the 2011 storm and to be ready for the next large scale event in Amherst.