Regional: Disaster Preparedness and Response: Links for more information

Disasters take all kinds of a forms, both natural and man-made. These include things like earthquakes and tornadoes, chemical spills and mass shootings. Steps for preparing for, responding to, and recovering from, these various disasters differ greatly. These links below will provide a great deal of information. Each has a focus, so explore multiple sites.

Departments & Organizations

CDC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention helps people prepare for disasters with a focus on health.
FEMA
FEMA helps people learn about and prepare for disasters of various sorts. Additionally, they help people prevent disasters, and develop the skills to respond to a wide variety of attacks, including earthquakes, chemical spills, cyber attacks, and more.
National Institutes of Health
Learn here a bunch of tips to help yourself and your family and business learn how to prepare for disasters, as well as what to do during disasters.
Ready.gov
This is an official website of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. It has many resources and tutorials and pieces of information to help insure that you can prepare for your next disaster, whether it be fire, hurricane, tornado, or anything else. This is a very rich resource.
Red Cross
This link includes guidance for creating a plan and navigating different disaster scenarios, including various templates.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
SAMHSA provides communities and responders with behavioral health resources that help them prepare, respond, and recover from disasters.

Other free open sources

CMS and Disasters: Resources at Your Fingertips
This document provides information and resources for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) disaster and emergency related programs.
Hospital Disaster Preparedness Self-Assessment Tool
This assessment tool was developed to assist hospitals in revising and updating existing disaster plans or in the development of new plans.
Topic Collection: Emergency Operations Plans/ Emergency Management Program of HHS.gov
This link provides standards and regulations to help create emergency plans.

Disaster Preparedness and Response

Videos

‘The Role of States in Disaster Recovery’