Disaster Planning for the Building Department (3.0 Hour) (Online Live)

Rarely are communities fully prepared when responding to disaster events. A condition that results from communities being left on their own to struggle with developing disaster preparedness plans. In the case of building departments, an inadequate or outdated disaster response plan will significantly impact a community’s ability to recover. Namely, when Preliminary Damage Assessments (PDAs) are not conducted quickly and Emergency Managers are not able to obtain reliable PDA data, a community’s ability to request and obtain local, state and/or federal assistance is greatly impacted. Further, when Post-disaster Building Safety Evaluations are not conducted, the community’s residents will reoccupy potentially unsafe structures. This training session begins by reviewing the various phases of a disaster, emergency management basics, and the post-disaster roles and responsibilities typically assigned to building departments in the wake of disasters. This training then discusses and provides practice examples on how to identify and request resources needed after a disaster. This training concludes by outlining disaster planning basics and items building department should consider when developing disaster preparedness plans. The goals of this training are to review the roles and responsibilities of the building department after a disaster and to provide guidance on developing a disaster plan.