I posted a similar question here (click here)about a year ago regarding practical preparedness for the Christian non-profit organization I work for. We were recently given a satellite phone for use in the even of a major emergency. A church in the city has purchased and given about twenty of these phones to different churches and organizations across the city. This is my question: now what? I have yet to talk in depth with the person who organized this, so I’m not sure if there is a specific procedure that he imagined for all of this.

The organization I work for occupies a fair sized building in downtown and we have approximately 25 staff (including myself) who live at the facility. We also host teams of youth from around the US, mostly high school and college age, to partner with us in our ministry. It is not uncommon for us to have up to 120 students with us at any given time.

Each of our staff and students are required to have a current “in case of emergency” contact number outside the city. Our current plan of action in the event of an emergency is to contact this ICE number to let families know the status of the staff or student, and if evacuation is necessary, to arrange transportation to a safe staging area. If a staff or student was separated from the group before or during the actual event, or becomes separated afterwards, and cannot contact the group, then the ICE contact is supposed to be called by the lost individual. The ICE number will also be called by the group and used as a go-between to arrange for them to meet up, or at the very least to inform the staff/group leaders of the lost person’s status.

This is about as far as we have in terms of an actual plan. I can see where the sat phone would be helpful, but I don’t know if the batteries would last long enough to make all the calls necessary. I can see making a plan to have all the ICE info given to a reliable/trusted person outside the city so that we could make one phone call to them and have them be a sort of call in center for us.

I want to know the thoughts of people here who have had experience with disaster communications. What else can we do to facilitate good communication between all the different people/places that need to be contacted? I don’t even know what “good communication” would be, but at the end of the day I want to make sure that the students get home safely, and that we are as best prepared to keep them safe until they get there.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. If there are other sites/resources that I should be looking at please let me know.

If shelter-in-place is possible, we do have food and water to sustain 150+ people for 72+ hours. I am more concerned for the event where our building becomes damaged or is destroyed.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance.

Jeff