Performing Department
Fire & Rescue Training Institu
Non Technical Summary
According to CUSEC (Central United States Earthquake Consortium) the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) is capable of producing damaging earthquakes at any time. The earthquakes of 1811-12 were estimated to be between a M7.0-8.0 and occurred in an area that was sparsely populated. Were these earthquakes to occur today, their effects would be considered catastrophic, directly affecting several million people across eight states and indirectly affecting millions of others. In an effort to prepare for this, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provided funding to CUSEC to lead an effort to develop, improve, and integrate the earthquake response plans of the eight states in the region, Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee, that would be most affected by an earthquake. This Federal project, called the NMSZ Catastrophic Planning Project, includes planning on the local, state and Federal levels of government but does not include citizen preparedness for this catastrophic event, as well as other catastrophic events in their states. Through this grant, the State Extension programs within the NMSZ will address this citizen preparedness deficiency by the development of products that will assist families, businesses, schools, and faith-based organizations become more disaster resilient, as well as a public marketing strategy. In addition, an emergency planning, training, and exercise program for Extension professionals will be developed to better integrate them into local emergency management efforts.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
Goals1. To build resilience in the communities that are impacted by the New Madrid Seismic Zone by the development of a disaster preparedness toolkit for citizens, businesses (agriculture and non-agriculture), schools, and faith-based organizations. This toolkit will be developed to address all hazards but will include additional resources and programming specific to the NMSZ. It will also include a public marketing strategy that can assist State Extension programs market appropriate resources to their citizens.2. To develop an Extension Planning, Training, and Exercise program (EPTEP) for our State Extension professionals to increase their participation in local emergency management activities.Acting as the primary "first provider" of emergency response services local emergency management agencies in our nation are responsible for identifying the hazards affecting their communities, assessing the capabilities of the community to address the hazards, and then developing an operational plan to address how disasters will be handled. There are many moving parts to these plans and many organizations that are written into the plans. State Extension organizations are one of the organizations that bring a diversity to the current emergency management system and are a perfect fit for inclusion into the emergency management field for several reasons; their outreach is from rural to urban areas therefore reaching diverse groups of people; they are respected stakeholders in the community; their programming is diverse and reaches different segments of the community; Extension programming changes with new research and programming, or through population changes within their communities. These connections are vital to assisting local governments in their mission of protection and assistance to their constituents. A planning, training, and exercise program is vital as we prepare our Extension professionals for their role in local emergency management activities and USDA expectations under Emergency Support Function 11 of the National Response Framework.ObjectivesThe end users of these objectives are State Extension Systems, local and state agencies responsible for emergency management activities, individuals and families, nonprofits, faith-based, schools, and businesses. To develop and implement a New Madrid Seismic Zone Preparedness Toolkit (NMSZPT) for citizens, businesses (agriculture and non-agriculture), schools, and faith-based organizations within the states included in the NMSZ and across the nation.This project will assemble the team of Extension professionals from the multi-states included in the grant (Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi), via Zoom meetings to discuss and assign the following tasks:Discuss what categories should be included.Develop an assessment tool to be used to identify disaster resources and/or programming applicable to the toolkit.Use assessment tool to identify external resources that should be included in the toolkit.Review collection of internal and external resources and programming and determine if additional resources and programming should be developed and assignments given based on expertise within the team.Team members will develop a public awareness and educational campaign for use in their state and across the nation.To build an Extension Planning, Training and Exercise Program (EPTEP) for Extension professionals in the NMSZ and across the nation that will assists our Extension programs internally, and our external emergency management partners, build more robust and disaster resilient communities and states.Planning - Team members will use a planning process to identify a selection of planning templates for use by local extension offices regarding office continuity planning and individual and family disaster preparedness plans. These plans will help extension offices and extension staff become more disaster resilient. Training - Team members will review emergency management training courses from a variety of organizations, as well as the findings from the EDEN Emergency Management Competency Profile for Extension Staff taskforce, to develop a recommended training program for extension professionals. Without appropriate emergency management training, extension professionals will be unprepared to participate in disaster related activities and, in many situations, not allowed to participate in local, state or Federal disaster related activities.Exercises are the third component to a planning, training and exercise program. Exercises help build resiliency in communities by identifying capability gaps and areas of improvement. Through this grant delivery, extension professionals will be taught the methodology of exercise design and evaluation for use in extension specific exercises, and local and state level emergency management exercise activities.16
Project Methods
Resource availability, planning, training, and community outreach are tools needed to help mitigate the negative impacts from disasters, earthquakes and beyond. This project will facilitate all of these strategies through the inventory of available materials, identifying gaps, creating new resources and programs, training extension professionals and partnering organizations on the resources and programs developed through the NMSZPT, the EPTEP, and the development of a public awareness outreach initiative. Under the current pandemic restrictions, most of the development of the toolkit and the programs will be conducted through electronic communications and video-conferencing apps, such as Zoom. As restrictions are lifted, Extension professionals can share this information face-to-face as well as through on-line platforms with their clients and stakeholders.The project partners will be formed into a leadership team. During the initial organizational meeting, a subcommittee structure will be developed with a lead member of the team identified for each of the major programmatic areas to be undertaken by the network. These areas and subcommittees will include: Development of the NMSZPT, development of the EPTEP, development of the public awareness outreach initiative, and project evaluation and assessment. Additional subcommittees and work groups will be added as needed.Each of the collaborators from University of Illinois (UIUC), Purdue University and Mississippi State University (MSU), and the PD from University of Missouri (MU) will serve as a primary point of contact within their respective institutions. They will participate in all leadership team meetings, and assist in securing the educational resources and expertise from within their university for contribution to the overall network. The leadership team members will serve on at least one subcommittee of their choice.Following the initial organizational meeting, semi-monthly meetings will be held using electronic communications and video-conferencing apps to conduct the ongoing activities of the leadership team. During these meetings progress reports will be submitted by each of the sub-committees. Their progress will then be correlated to the goals, objectives and timeline as included in this proposal. Meeting schedules will be adjusted as needed.For the initial roll-out of the NMSZPT, the EPTEP, and the public awareness outreach initiative, extension professionals representing a variety of extension programming from UIUC, Purdue, MSU, and MU, will be selected by the team leads from the states they represent. Following the initial roll-out, each state will use the toolkit and the public awareness outreach materials and strategy to reach citizens. It will be encouraged that extension educators use the public awareness outreach strategy to inform the public of the toolkit and programming available through extension and insert appropriate disaster related materials into their specific programming. Emergency management is an easy concept and can easily be inserted into discussions in formal and informal settings. Finally, the NMSZPT, the EPTEP, and the public awareness outreach initiative, will be distributed through partner networks.