ComPlan: Who do you communicate with and how do you communicate?

The first step in creating a Communications Plan (ComPlan) is to find out who you need to communicate with. For the next week or so, make a list of everyone significant that you communicate with. Not just the people, but also the agencies, businesses, even important web pages.

The intent is to know where to focus you energies. If there is a very important web page that you must access, then you will need to put more emphasis on the internet. So here is a sample list with generic name. You want specifics, along with phone numbers, URL's, frequencies or whatever. This is important. Keep adding to the list ....forever.

• Family
• Immediate local family.
• Family at school or other distant location.
• Extended family.
• Parents
• Grand Parents
• Siblings
• Relatives.

• Friends
• Businesses
• Electrical Provider.
• Water Provider.
• Fuel (heating oil).
• Community
• Government
• Police
• Fire
• Municipal Administration
• School
• Emergency Alert System
• NOAA Weather Alert(SAME)
• Neighbors
• Organizations
• Clubs
• Workplace:
• Religious Groups
• Service Groups
• Medical Facilities.
• Emergency Services.
• Medical phone assistance.
• Family Physician.
• Pharmacy
• DDS
• Veternarian.
• Opthamologist
• Other medical specialists.

And on and on and on.......

This is more complicated than it appears. I think you will be surprised at the large number of contacts and the variety of technologies that you use. This is what we need to somehow duplicate after a disaster. Perhaps it will only be needed when you leave the affected area during a supply run. But when you make the run, you need to have the information with you and it needs to be current and in a usable form. You won't be able to depend on getting it off of a SD card or smart phone. But we will discuss that later.

Now, begin making the list. Start from memory and keep it up ... we can do other things while you work on the list.

Creating a ComPlan is complex. Keep the objective in mind:

Who you need to communicate with and,

How will you do it?

We will discuss many technologies in a bit, but first we need to plan;

 What needs to be done when.

Communication Conditions (ComCon) are next.