Project Library

3 results

Faith-based Organizations Outreach for IRAA Emergency Preparedness (2013)

The goal of this project is to protect lives, to minimize physical/psychological trauma from disasters, and to reduce peak demand on EMDs/First Responders by developing new capacity for IRAA emergency resilience by building on and extending previous work achieved by the Western Mass IRAA Preparedness Project to include faith-based and cultural centers. This project advances the mission of the DHS Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives: “To build resilient communities among faith-based and community organizations.” WRHSAC has developed this project through several phases. More recent phases of the project have focused on utilizing faith based organizations to build a Rest Center network in Western Massachusetts. Click here for more information.

Individuals Requiring Additional Assistance Informational Video

Emergency Rest Centers Informational Video

Reference: Evacuation, Fatih Communities, Indivduals Requiring Additional Assistance, Shelter Planning

Regional Evacuation Planning (2012)

This project developed regionally inclusive evacuation maps that take into account conditions that would initiate evacuation flow out of the area, and conditions that might initiate evacuation flow into the region. The research, data compilation and map development were completed by the three regional planning agencies, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, the Franklin Regional Council of Governments and the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. Critical infrastructure data layers were incorporated into the maps. Primary, secondary and alternate routes were plotted on the maps. The maps have been distributed to each municipality in the four counties of western Massachusetts. If any town official is interested in these maps please contact Susan Brown, Homeland Security Program Manager. The project was completed in 2012.

Reference: Evacuation

Mass Care, Sheltering and Evacuation (2012)

The WRHSAC has coordinated several project related to preparedness planning for mass care, sheltering, and evacuation for the region. These efforts link into recently statewide efforts. Much of the work done by WRHSAC is being used as templates for the statewide projects. The WHRSAC projects include:

• Regional Shelter Planning – Establishing regional disaster response shelters, developing plans, and identifying needed resources and equipment.
• Evacuation – Developed evacuation maps for primary and secondary routes and alternate routes throughout the region.
• Mass Receiving Planning – and developing plans to receive evacuees from other areas.
• Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) Response Planning – Developing common operating picture response plans to local and regional incidents for DART teams.
• Faith Community Partnership for Preparedness – Establishing partnerships between faith communities, first responders, and municipal official to enhance the capacity to care for citizens in disaster response.
• Sheltering Equipment & Supplies – Establishing caches of sheltering response related equipment. Examples include: sheltering equipment trailers, DART equipment trailers, light towers and highway message boards. See the Resource Guide for a full list of equipment.
• Public Emergency Communication Strategies – Researching the most effective ways to communicate with the public before, during and after emergency incidents/disasters.
• Website Revision / Redesign – Enhanced the WRHSAC websites to provide emergency response tools and information to first responders and provide personal emergency preparedness information to the public. WRHSAC.org and WesternMassReady.org

Reference: Evacuation, Public Emergency Communciation Strategies, Shelter Planning, Sheltering Equipment