Planning Guides

The guide helps emergency managers incorporate climate adaptation into emergency management planning efforts. The structure is designed to walk state, local, tribal, and territorial partners through the Six Step Planning Process, as identified in “Comprehensive Preparedness Guide 101: Developing and Maintaining Emergency Operations Plans.” The climate guide also highlights existing climate mapping tools, trainings, and potential funding resources. Download supporting documents which include:

• Executive Summary
• Two-page outline on the six-step planning process for climate
• Standalone federal resources document

The document and associated quick reference guide and checklists provide an executive-level introduction to emergency management concepts and principles for local senior officials and identifies local senior officials’ roles and responsibilities for emergency management before, during and after disasters. Download the Quick Reference Guide and Checklist. View the short video on potential roles local elected and appointed officials can play before, during and after disasters.

Identifies relevant concepts, considerations, and principles that can inform jurisdictions in planning for evacuation and/or shelter-in-place protective actions.  The research report Improving Public Messaging for Evacuation and Shelter-in-Place and its companion slide library documents findings from peer-reviewed research and presents recommendations for informing community members about risk and providing effective warnings.

The Shelter-in-Place Pictogram Guidance provides the public clear protective action guidance for 10 hazards and three building types. The guidance includes recommended interior locations by hazard, additional protective actions, and duration. Social media friendly versions are available to provide clear protective action guidance regardless of platform.

Identifies  concepts and principles relevant to the development of related plans and the completion of a THIRA.

Identifies the capabilities and activities necessary to prepare and successfully implement disaster financial management while maintaining fiscal responsibility throughout response and recovery operations.

Provides officials with information and resources on hazardous materials, incident preparedness and response and practices to increase community resilience to those incidents.

Developed in coordination with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), “Planning Considerations for Cyber Incidents: Guidance for Emergency Managers Guide” provides state, local, tribal, and territorial emergency managers with foundational knowledge of cyber incidents to increase cyber preparedness efforts in their jurisdictions. This guide is intended to help emergency management personnel collaboratively prepare for a cyber incident and support the development of a cyber incident response plan or annex. Download the Overview document and Critical Cyber Asset Identification & Prioritization Checklist. View the short video outlining the important roles emergency managers have in planning for cyber incidents impacting their communities through the identification and prioritization of critical services and dependencies.

Distribution Management Plans enable SLTT partners to strengthen capabilities before a disaster to enhance capacities to distribute resources to survivors after a disaster. FEMA. Effective 2019, all Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) recipients are required to develop and maintain a Distribution Management Plan as an annex to their Emergency Operations Plan. View the frequently asked questions.

Guidance on national housing priorities, types of housing, key considerations and housing-specific planning recommendations that jurisdictions can apply when developing or improving housing plans.  (Spanish)

Provides emergency managers with recommendations and best practices on how to analyze local supply chains and work with the private sector to enhance supply chain resilience using a five-phased approach.

Provides jurisdictions, utility owners/operators, and healthcare facilities with information and resources to improve resilience to power outages, integrate plans, and prioritize assistance during an outage.

Guide on emergency operations planning, discussing actions that may be taken before, during and after an incident to reduce the impact on property and loss of life. It encourages houses of worship to develop an emergency operations plan.

This guide outlines principles of emergency management planning for institutions of higher education, provides a process for the development of emergency operations plans and describes the content with those plans.

This guide provides recommendations in the development of plans not only to respond to an emergency, but also outlines how schools (K-12) can plan for preventing, protecting against, mitigating the impact of and recovering from these emergencies.

FEMA in partnership with the U.S. Department of Urban Housing and Development (HUD) published the Pre-Disaster Housing Planning Initiative Report to bolster state, tribal and territorial planning for housing recovery before disasters occur. The report offers insight into the technical assistance provided to Louisiana, Montana, New Jersey, and Washington during 2023 and the aspects that enabled the states to successfully engage in pre-disaster housing planning.

Lifelines enable the continuous operation of critical government and business functions and is essential to human health and safety or economic security.

This fact sheet provides recommendations and resources for jurisdictions to conduct disaster resource identification, includes recovery resources, guidance for how to search for disaster recovery resources, and recommendations for disaster resource management.