The Tampa Bay Catastrophic Plan was created to address the challenges of response and recovery during a catastrophic event in the Tampa Bay area. A catastrophic incident is defined as “any natural or manmade incident including terrorism that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale and/or government functions.” It requires fully integrated inter‐ and intra‐governmental actions, combined capacities, communication, coordination and synchronization.
A large catastrophic incident could result in sustained widespread impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeding state, local and private‐sector resources in the impacted area. It will significantly interrupt governmental operations including emergency services and threaten public safety and national security. These factors drive the urgency for coordinated planning to ensure accelerated federal and state assistance.
This document focuses on the procedures, communication channels and coordination strategies necessary to rapidly request and receive critical resources post event. It relies on earlier catastrophic work as well as local perspectives to assist in the assessment of damage, calculation of tactical and support resource need, requests for assistance and
management of those resources. This document also investigates the roles of community partners including the private sector, not‐for‐profit organizations, volunteer organizations, faith‐based partners and survivors in response and recovery.
