Jill Boone San Jose Apr 2, 2011 13:36 pm

We have a lot of responsibility for disaster planning and operations and I am aware that many employees (including myself) are not prepared for a disaster at home, in spite of having been given lots of information (for instance a 24 week planning guide!!). County employees are all disaster workers of one type or another - and so if they are not prepared at home, chances are that we will not have as good response in our work because of this distraction. I'm going to do a mini pilot in our department to see if I can increase the percentage of employees who have basic supplies on hand and accessible at home. I'm also using this as a trial run for CBSM efforts.

I haven't found any successful programs and the reasons why people don't prepare are many, so I'm starting with a survey to evaluate the level of preparedness and the barriers and benefits. I've chosen 6 behaviors that are easy to measure (having a fully charged flashlight available to each member of the family, signed up for the Alert program in our county, stored food and water for 10 days in a place accessible if the house is not, etc.)

I'm surveying the entire department - there are other questions relating to our preparedness at work too and then will do a pilot on a small group within the department. Then I can measure the changes in the small group against the larger group of the department. If it is successful, I will do it with the full dept and recommend it to the full county (15,000 employees).

Anyone done anything like this that has measurable results that show that families or employees are now prepared? Any comments?


Jill  Boone
Climate Change and Sustainability Manager
County of Santa Clara - Facilities and Fleet Dept.
United States