Case Study Comprehensive Emergency Management Support Ramsey County, MN Emergency Management and Homeland Security (EMHS)
Solutions
In addition to assessing the function of the Incident Management Team and efforts to assure continuity of government/continuity of operations, our team also: • Assessed the impact on the provision of services to the residents during the pandemic • Assessed community impacts from the multiple crises that occurred during the pandemic • Developed an equity impact assessment to determine the real and perceived disparities in how the pandemic and the County’s response affected various communities throughout As a follow-up to the review, Tidal Basin held a series of interviews with County stakeholders and engaged community leaders with focus group sessions to gather feedback and understanding of community impact. We analyzed all data and, based on that analysis, developed a final document that included a timeline, observations and analysis, strengths, and areas for improvement. During our Ramsey AAR interviews and data collection, we paid particular attention to Ramsey County’s efforts to advance racial and health equity and effective community engagement as an integral component of COVID-19 response. With the murder of George Floyd occurring in the neighboring county, it was imperative to understand the efforts the County took to engage, gain trust, and ensure that disproportionately impacted populations and neighborhoods were provided the same opportunities throughout the pandemic. Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), 2022 Once the U.S. entered the endemic stage of the historic COVID-19 outbreak and began to transition to strategies for managing the disease, many organizations recognized the
need to assess their response to the pandemic and update their emergency plans accordingly. In 2022, Ramsey County enlisted Tidal Basin to assist with the development of a revision to their county-wide Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) and annexes, including the addition of two new functional annexes and 12 new job aids. These updates reflect lessons learned during the pandemic and recommendations from the County’s COVID-19 After-Action Report and Improvement Plan (AAR/IP). Ramsey County was already familiar with Tidal Basin’s experience in disaster response and risk reduction expertise as well as the wide-ranging skills, expertise, work ethic, and integrity of our team due to our work on the County’s AAR/IP, which was completed in May 2022, and our assistance in coordinating funding from FEMA Public Assistance, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. To prepare for this update, the Tidal Basin team reviewed the County’s 2017 county-wide EOP, the COVID-19 AAR/IP, and other emergency management doctrine, guidance, policies, and procedures that had been resources as we developed the AAR/IP. We formulated a crosswalk and gap analysis that complied with the State of Minnesota crosswalk requirements (MNWALK), assessing the existing EOP and annexes against the Comprehensive Preparedness Guide 101 v3, National Planning Frameworks, the National Incident Management System (NIMS), Incident Command System (ICS), the State EOP, Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA Titles II, III, and IV, and the EMHS’s Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA). The resulting survivor-centric plan encompasses community resilience principles and community lifeline principles and maintains the current Common Response Doctrine.
Resillience Delivered
Tidal Basin successfully supported all Ramsey County’s emergency management needs and objectives, leaving the County in a more resilient position than before. 2020 saw the introduction of a public health emergency of international concern as COVID-19 swept the globe. Ramsey County, along with many other counties and cities throughout the country, met the pandemic and all its uncertainty head-on.
During the AAR/IP project, Tidal Basin captured lessons learned, including assessing real and perceived gaps in diversity and equity in the County’s emergency response and provided recommendations for improvement, leading toward enhanced resilience for the County.
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