DISASTER

following: 1. A post-mortem assessment of the County's abiliy to respond to large-scale disasters, like Hurricane Katrina. 2. A public outreach campaign plan for disaster preparedness. 3. An assessment of the County's Operational Area Emergency Response Plan (OAERP) with recommendations to improve its effectiveness in large-scale disaster response. This report provides information on the County's current level of preparedness followed by a description of the methodology used to assess our readiness for a catastrophic event. The report culminates in findings and recommendation designed to strengthen our preparedness for catastrophic disasters. CURRENT STATUS OF PREPAREDNESS The County uses the California Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS) to coordinate and respond to disasters. SEMS is based on the Incident Command System which was developed in California by Firescope in the early 1970s. SEMS provides common functional descriptions, common terminology, and a common organizational structure for the coordination of damage information and resource requests. Under SEMS, the County, also known as the Operational Area (OA) Coordinator, serves as the intermediate level of government that coordil)ates an