Stages of the Model

Planning

Each community will develop a local contingency plan specifying the activities to be carried out and the strategies for responding to the various adverse events, with the participation of the local authorities, community leaders, health teams, and local inhabitants.

The plan must include the following components:

• Risk assessment
• Risk and resource map with the following information:

It is very important at this stage to secure the participation of municipal authorities in order to coordinate support for the institutions involved in carrying out civil protection activities, as well as to maintain a liaison with health personnel on the ground.

After the assessment has been completed, special attention must be paid to high-risk areas—where drills and simulacra must be carried out—and to the training of the health teams and volunteer groups. The latter task involves taking into consideration the traditional means and ways of communication within the various social networks, the customs, and above all the cultural patterns, particularly in indigenous areas.

Implementation

This stage requires monitoring hydrometeorological phenomena and the messages from the municipal authorities and civil protection bodies so as to issue timely warnings to the population and carry out evacuations, if necessary, as well as deploying RMUs wherever they may be needed.

Immediate Communication and Information

This phase kicks in when disaster strikes. Mechanisms must already be in place to report any event and request support, including an effective wireless telecommunications network. Alternative systems, including battery-operated systems, need to be in place as well in case there should be power cuts. Alternative routes must also have been identified in case normal access should be blocked to any given community.

Immediate Implementation of The EPI-DESASTRES System

The radio stations of the National Indigenous Peoples Institute and other local radio stations broadcast information to the affected communities, including information about current events and the relief systems in place.

At this stage, as well, first- and second-level medical care, arranged by micro-regions, becomes available, including the deployment of emergency care modules to supplement the work of the normal RMUs.

Emergency supply warehouses—the location of which would have been defined in advance—spring into action and start receiving and distributing drugs, food, and other supplies in a systematic manner. Support brigades are quickly assembled and deployed.

Community Participation

Concurrent with the previously mentioned stages, community brigades assemble and receive the necessary support and equipment from the municipal authorities before engaging in search and rescue operations, shelter construction and management, and the collection and distribution of emergency supplies to the affected population. Simple epidemiological surveillance and environmental sanitation actions are carried out as needed.
The communities are kept informed of the course of the emergency and what is being done in response using the various prearranged communication channels. Local residents are encouraged to participate in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of roads, housing units, and public facilities.

Evaluation

The final report must include information about the affected population, damage estimates, health and epidemiological information, as well as an inventory of the resources used.

Benchmarks to help measure the success of the operation include the following: restoring all medical units that may have been affected by the disaster, reporting any infectious diseases detected by the medical units in the emergency shelters or the community at large, keeping mortality below one percent, and controlling in timely fashion any epidemic outbreaks.