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 event, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of 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 requiring immediate lifesaving support from outside the affected area.
• Displace tens of thousands of people and isolate large areas from normal supply channels.
• Almost immediately overwhelm response and recovery resources normally available to local, state, tribal, and private-sector governments or entities, and require extended strategies and outside capabilities.
• Cause massive disruption of critical infrastructure such as energy, transportation, telecommunications, medical response, and health care systems.
• Significantly interrupt governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that state or national security could be threatened.
• Result in long-term economic impacts to the incident area, California, and Nation.

These factors drive the need for coordinated disaster planning that includes potential federal 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.

Fact Sheets that provide an overview of each catastrophic incident plan are available for download below without a password (non-For Official Use Only).

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