Guides for the people who carry the plan
Working references written for county and local emergency managers, preparedness coordinators, and the department leads who end up owning a piece of the program. No gated downloads and no email required. If something here saves you an afternoon, it has done its job.
Standards-based, and written from having done the work.
Every guide here reflects practice in the field rather than a summary of the doctrine. They are written by a Certified Emergency Manager and Master Exercise Practitioner who has authored a county EOP, directed emergency management across a 17-county region, and authored a state's continuity, debris, and recovery plan set.
How to write a county Emergency Operations Plan (CPG 101)
The full build: planning team, risk basis, plan structure, annexes, the review cycle, and the seven mistakes that get plans sent back by state reviewers.
Read the guide Exercises · 10 min readHow to run a tabletop exercise that finds real gaps
Objectives before scenario, the documents you actually need, who belongs in the room, and how to facilitate so people stop defending the plan and start testing it.
Read the guide Evaluation · 9 min readWriting an after-action report that actually closes the loop
Why most AARs change nothing, what separates a finding from an observation, and how to build an improvement plan with owners and dates that people work to.
Read the guide Recovery · 10 min readBuilding a county debris management plan
Volume estimates, pre-identified debris sites, standby contracts, and the monitoring discipline that decides whether your Public Assistance claim survives review.
Read the guide Continuity · 9 min readContinuity of operations for local government
Essential functions, recovery time objectives, succession and delegation of authority, alternate facilities, vital records, and how to test it without pretending.
Read the guideHow to use these
Each guide is written to be worked from rather than read once. They follow the sequence most programs actually move through: build or update the plan, test it with an exercise, convert what the exercise found into corrective actions that close, and then expand into the specialized plans your hazards require.
If you are starting from a cold stop, begin with the county EOP guide. If your plan is current but has never been tested, start with the tabletop guide. If you have run exercises and the same findings keep reappearing, the after-action report guide is the one that will help.
Nothing here is a substitute for your state's guidance or the current federal policy documents, which take precedence and change periodically. Where a requirement matters to a decision you are making, verify it against the current source.
Working through one of these and want a second opinion?
A free consultation is a plain-language review of what you have against what the standard expects. No obligation, and you keep the notes either way.
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