Catastrophic Planning

The widespread impact of a catastrophic incident makes it one of the most important topics in emergency management today. A catastrophic incident may be a single incident or a series of incidents and is defined as a natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, and government functions.

A catastrophic incident in California would likely result in:

• • Thousands of casualties with many more requiring immediate lifesaving support from outside the affected area.
  • Tens of thousands of people being displaced and isolation from normal supply channels and chains.
  • Almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to the state, tribal, local, and private-sector, overwhelming response and recovery strategies and capabilities.
  • Massive disruption of the area’s critical infrastructure (such as energy, transportation, telecommunications, medical response, and health care systems).
  • Significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that state or national security could be threatened.
  • Long-term economic impacts to the incident area, California, and Nation.

These factors drive the urgency for coordinated disaster planning and a need for national assistance. Following a catastrophic incident in California, a joint state and federal organization will provide lifesaving, life-sustaining, and other resources necessary to alleviate the consequences of the incident and encourage the recovery of the affected areas.

​Catastrophic Incident Base Plan
Concept of Operations: Establishes the concept of operations for how state and federal officials will coordinate for all types of catastrophic disasters (pdf download).