The City of Santa Cruz has a complete response plan in place to respond to nearly every type of disaster.  This Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) is available for public view and download here.

During an emergency response the City of Santa Cruz follows the Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS), set by the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (CalOES), and integrates with the National Incident Management Sysem (NIMS),  as developed by the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pursuant to Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-5. Adherence to these standards (SEMS, NIMS) ensures that all levels of government have the capability to work efficiently and effectively together, using a national approach to domestic incident management.

SEMS incorporates: (1) The use of the Incident Command System (ICS) (the structure of ICS is depicted in the graphic, below), (2) California Disaster and Civil Defense Master Mutual Aid Agreement (MMAA), (3) The Operational (OA) Area concept and, (4) Multiagency or inter-agency coordination.

State agencies are required to use SEMS and local government entities must use SEMS in order to be eligible for any reimbursement of response-related costs under the state’s disaster assistance programs.

In addition to working with several local, state, and federal governmental agencies, Santa Cruz also works closely with many non-governmental agencies including the American Red Cross and local businesses and resource providers.

Free viewers are required for some of the attached documents.
They can be downloaded by clicking on the icons below.

Acrobat Reader Windows Media Player Word Viewer Excel Viewer PowerPoint Viewer