The district emergency planner serves as the health district coordinator for all-hazards Emergency Preparedness and Response (EP&R) activities. These include ensuring that all jurisdictions and offices in the Fifth Planning District develop and maintain up to date, adequate plans for responding to acts of bioterrorism, infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies and threats. The planner ensures that their district develops and maintains up to date, adequate plans for distributing the Strategic National Stockpile. The district emergency planner leads EP&R activities and participates in EP&R planning activities in the district. The planner ensures that a local emergency communications plan is developed and maintained and that clear, consistent messages about EP&R are developed and provided to the public and other targeted groups within the Fifth Planning District. The district emergency planner serves as a liaison to regional EP&R team and ensures that the district participates in coordinated regional planning for EP&R, infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies and threats and for the receipt and distribution of the Strategic National Stockpile.
The emergency planner maintains and fosters relationships with Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPC), the Near Southwest Regional Hospital Task Force, federal, state, and local law enforcement, fire/EMS, emergency management community and other response entities. The emergency planner is tasked with formalizing health district response roles. As members of the EP&R team, the planner is required to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The planner coordinates on-going processes to maintain useful strategic plans for the health districts in detection, response, and remediation of health and community emergencies. Through the Emergency Operations Plan, the emergency planner is in the process of defining response roles for local health departments as regards to public health emergencies.
The emergency planner work with the regional EP&R team to develop emergency communications strategies and to develop clear, consistent public health messages about topics related to EP&R and all public health hazards. The emergency planner is developing local public awareness campaigns about emergency preparedness and planning and work with the EP&R team to provide information and education about EP&R and all public health hazards to targeted groups in the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts, including health department personnel, first responders, medical community, local governments and local hospitals.