Utah’s Statewide Mutual Aid Act is intended to streamline the process for emergency assistance due to disasters. Communities that participate in the mutual aid act are required to develop and maintain emergency preparedness plans in a format that is provided by state and federal agencies.
Not every community is alike. In order to evaluate potential disasters and hazards that could potentially affect your community, it is imperative that your community conduct its own risk assessment. In addition to analyzing the typical environmental hazards (i.e. floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.), you should also consider technological accidents (i.e. toxic chemical releases, nuclear power plant accidents, etc.) as well as deliberate incidents (i.e. sabotage, or terrorist attack involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive/flammable agents).
Planning for an array of disasters can be a daunting task. The goal of this course is to help demystify the requirements of emergency preparedness plans.
