Overview
This page explains how the University approaches emergency planning, and contains copies of publicly-available planning materials.
The Planning Process
Emergency plans are used to formalize the efforts conducted by many stakeholders to accomplish the goals of preventing, preparing for, mitigating, responding to, and recovering from emergencies, incidents and disasters. The University utilizes the planning process contained in the Guide for Developing High-Quality Emergency Operations Plans for Institutions of Higher Education when conducting any emergency planning project. The University also references other planning guides such as the Comprehensive Planning Guide series published be FEMA as appropriate. These This guides help ensure that GU emergency plans are comprehensive, collaborative, and timely and reflect contemporary industry best practices for emergency preparedness.
Types of Emergency Plans
There are many types of emergency planning efforts. Common plans include:
- Emergency Operations Plans, which explain response efforts
- Continuity of Operations Plans or Business Continuity Plans, which detail how to recover after an event
- Preparedness Plans, which contain the information that guides the preparedness activities
- Training and Exercise Plan, which outlines how emergency plans are tested and revised
- Hazard Mitigation Plans, which identifies and prioritizes mitigation projects
Organizations may select the most appropriate types of plans for their use. They may also combine plans together or may rename plans to best suit their individual needs.
Plan Updates and Revisions
Because there are so many types of plans, all of which are related, most organizations employ a phased approach to planning. Plans undergo small maintenance on an annual basis to check for things like name changes, confirm contact information, or other minor updates. Large overhauls and updates to plans, which can take as long as 24 months to accomplish, occur on a rotating basis, generally on a five or six year schedule. To accommodate the resources required for large overhauls, usually only one or two plans are in major revision at any given time. Emergency Preparedness is responsible for ensuring the University’s emergency plans are revised and up-to-date.
Copies of Plan Documents
Emergency plans, unless specifically stated otherwise, are considered sensitive/secure documents and are proprietary to the institution for which they are drafted. The currently available plans are:
To request additional public versions of Gonzaga University emergency plans not listed here, please contact Emergency Preparedness.