An Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) is a cornerstone of organizational preparedness. But a plan on a shelf doesn’t guarantee a successful response when an emergency strikes. Testing your plan through exercises is the bridge from theory to practice, helping staff understand their roles, identify gaps, and build confidence in real-world scenarios. Exercises don’t have to…

An Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) is one of the most important documents an organization can have and one of the easiest to misunderstand. Many organizations invest significant time and resources in developing or updating their EOP, only to see it sit on a shared drive, referenced occasionally during an update cycle or accreditation processes, but…

Emergency Operations Plans are built to answer hard questions. But buried inside most EOPs is a dangerous assumption that rarely gets challenged: That communication will simply work when it matters most. Plans assume leaders will speak clearly under pressure. They assume information will flow smoothly across agencies. They assume the public will wait patiently for…

Emergency management has evolved faster than many of the documents that guide it. If you redesigned your EOC on a blank whiteboard, factoring in modern hazards, staffing realities, and the tech you use every day, would the result match your current structure? For a lot of communities, it would not. And that is perfectly fine.…

If you have ever opened up your Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) and thought, “This isn’t how we actually do things here…” you are not alone. How a plan is structured is one of the most straightforward choices in emergency planning, yet it is often the most overlooked. And in New England, where every municipality across…

If you’ve ever asked yourself whether your Local Emergency Operations Plan (LEOP) is really ready for the unexpected, you’re not alone. Even the most experienced emergency managers know that plans can sit on a shelf for years, gathering dust, while staff change, priorities shift, and requirements evolve. That’s why we created this self-assessment tool. As…