Nashville.gov - Office of Emergency Management - Readiness and Response

Office of Emergency Management

Readiness and Response

Readiness and Response
The severity of an event will determine the Emergency Operations Center activation level. OEM operates under eight condition levels that determine the city’s readiness and response to a community emergency.

OEM Readiness Levels
The first four conditions are readiness levels that are used to gauge the severity of a threat to the city:
Operation Condition	Definition	Primary Action	Examples
OP-CON 1	Day-to-day	Monitor, routine resources requests	Barricades, debris, water main, traffic lights, power outage, etc…
OP-CON 2	Potential threat	Assessment initiated	Special weather statements
OP-CON 3	Likely threat	Notifications initiated, assessment continues	Severe weather watch, etc… Emergency conditions may develop
OP-CON 4	Imminent threat	Selected resources on standby Intensive assessment	Severe weather warning, etc… Emergency conditions developing

OEM Response Levels
There are also four response levels, or conditions that determine the type and severity of an event, and how the city responds to an emergency:
Operation Condition	Definition	Primary Action	Examples
OP-CON 5	Limited emergency	Limited resource coordination	Minor Community Impact Damaging winds, minor snow storms
OP-CON 6	Significant emergency	Partial activation of the Emergency Operations Center Multi-department coordination	Isolated Community Impact
OP-CON 7	Major emergency	Full activation of the EOC Major response and recovery coordination	Substantial Community Impact Wide spread damaging storms
OP-CON 8	Catastrophic Emergency	State and Federal Response Plan Activated	Major Community Impact
The severity of an incident in this category of Operations Conditions will determine the level of the Emergency Operations Center activation.