Office of the County Administrator County of Sonoma BOB Deis County Administrator

Written plans and checklists are not consistent among county, cities, agencies, and departments, and in some cases are non-existent. Response: Partially agree with the finding. I do not have the documentation to either affirm or disagree with the Grand Jury's finding. Assuming there is some variation between city plans and checklists, I can say the various agencies participating in emergency response all have different resources and capabilities. Through the work of the Emergency Services Department, the Sonoma County/Operational Area Emergency Coordinators Forum, and Emergency Council, County agency emergency response plans and policies are reviewed and discussed to strengthen coordination and consistency. In addition, the Emergency Services Department will be contacting cities to review their plans and provide any advice as requested. I defer to the County departmental response for additional explanation. I concur with their response.

ISD tried the conventional approach of attempting to get its major users to reach consensus on which applications would take priority in the event of a major and prolonged outage of the computer systems. Like many other IS departments, they found the responses lackluster at best. Response: Disagree partially with the finding. ISD is in the process of updating its Countywide Disaster Recovery Plan and did seek input from all County departments with a questionnaire. It is my understanding that some departments did not respond. ISD is proceeding with its update and when complete will circulate again to all County departments for their input. Before the plan is complete, all departments will have provided their input.

ISD is run on a full cost recovery basis, i.e., its expenditures are funded by charging user departments for their share of the computer usage, basically an equitable scheme. However there is no place in the cost recovery system to separately fund any unique expenditures for disaster recovery plans. August 26, 2005 Response: Disagree with the finding. The technical infrastructure for Disaster Recovery is a baseline expense that all County departments receive benefit from. Costs for Disaster Recovery are included in department baseline computer costs. If unique disaster related projects are identified in response to a specific disaster, the Board of Supervisors can prioritize the project and approve funding. Furthermore, the County Administrator has delegated authority to properly respond to each unique disaster as they arise. Actual expenses associated with disaster recovery will be tracked separately.

All county employees are listed as disaster recovery resources, as indeed are members of the grand jury, but there is no clear plan on how they will report in for duty, or how they will be used. Response: Partially disagree with this finding. County employees are Disaster Service Workers and all new full- time County employees receive SEMS training including an introduction to the Emergency Operations Plan at New Employee Orientation. His or her supervisor will determine employee's specific roles and the Human Resources Department will coordinate scheduling. Grand Jury members are not full-time County employees and do not fall under the Disaster Service Worker criteria.

There are no consistent plans to inform the public ahead of time of what information will be available at the time of a disaster, nor is there a consistent plan to make use of media, or the City Watch system in the event of a disaster. (The City Watch system is a software program that allows for sending informational or alert messages to a given geography of telephone users) S:\Projects\Grand Jury Documents\05-06\CAO Responses to Grand Jury Report FinaJ.doc August 26, 2005 Response: Disagree with the finding. The County does have plans for providing public information regarding disasters. There is no standardized preplanned program, as specific disaster scenarios will require unique public notification and information. In addition, some preplanned responses to the public may be vague and inaccurate resulting in confusion and misinformation. The County does have templates for public notification on disaster scenarios in the Emergency Public Information Plan that can be adapted to the specific conditions.

There are no consistent disaster response checklists for law enforcement and public safety personnel, the two major agencies involved in every disaster. While law enforcement acknowledges SEMS, it relies on its normal critical incident skills to sustain its disaster response efficacy. There is too much reliance on a disaster being just another critical incident, basically "all in a day's work." As a result, there are no written policies and/or procedures that describe the responsibilities of the Sheriffs Department as part of the County Emergency Operations Plan. Response: Disagree with the finding. The Emergency Operation Plan describes the responsibility of the Sheriffs Department as Operations Section Chief. These responsibilities include directing local resources, coordinating mutual aid responses, and coordination with incident commanders. The EOC contains specific checklists describing responsibilities of the Operations Section. I have personally witnessed Sheriff staff perform in their Operations Section Chief role in the Emergency Operations Center doing various large-scale exercises. MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES DIVISION: ON THE MEND?

As the grand jury uncovered in the "A Disaster Waiting to Happen" investigation, much of the detailed work in the disaster planning is done by a few dedicated mid-level staff people. This quickly leads to introspective approaches by the planner. Senior management is not providing the continuous effort to ensure that communication with the major stakeholders and junior staff is intensive and frequent. Response: Disagree with the finding. As described in the response to F6, ISD is in the process of updating the Countywide Disaster Recovery Plan. The update includes review and input from department senior management. When approved by the Board, the Plan will be distributed to all County Departments. As in the past, department heads and senior management will be encouraged to make junior staff and other stakeholders aware of its requirements and provide training. With an organization the size of Sonoma County, most "detailed work" is done by "mid-level staff' with direction and review done by senior management. This topic is no different.

With regard to county departments, neither the Board of Supervisors nor the County Administrator calls for a periodic review of the disaster recovery nor business resumption plans. Response: Partially disagree with the finding. While we disagree with the premise for this finding (annual review by the Board of Supervisors is appropriate and business resumption needs compete with life and safety needs), we do believe periodic review is warranted. This is why ISD is undertaking their current "Disaster Plan" project. This practice has occurred in the past and will continue. Required responses to recommendations RI Complete its initial disaster recovery plan by December 2005, and request the funding it calls for in time for the 2006-2007 budget cycle. This request should include a change in the manner by which such expenditures are funded, separately from recovery of ongoing ISD running costs. Response: The recommendation has not been implemented, but will be implemented in the future. ISD will be completing its Disaster Recovery Plan by December 2005. Any resource needs and budgetary recommendations will be considered as part of future ISD budget requests.