Preparedness

Preparedness is distinct from mitigation because rather than focusing on eliminating or reducing risks, the general focus of preparedness is to enhance the capacity to respond to an incident by taking steps to ensure personnel and entities are capable of responding to a wide range of potential incidents.

Preparedness activities may include:

• Training
• Planning
• Procuring resources, such as food, water, and medication stockpiles
• Situation assessments
• Exercising to assure the adequacy of planning efforts and the use of after-action reports to improve emergency response plans