Overview

To prepare for the potential impact of a large coastal storm, the New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) has developed a Coastal Storm Plan (CSP). Key components of the plan are the establishment of Evacuation Centers and Hurricane Shelters to serve up to 600,000 residents who may seek public shelter in the event of a severe storm. OEM is recruiting up to 68,000 volunteers from City agencies and nonprofit organizations who will staff and provide logistical support to the Evacuation Centers and Hurricane Shelters.

To prepare these volunteers, OEM is collaborating with The City University of New York (CUNY) School of Professional Studies (SPS) to develop and deliver a training program. The training is categorized into two major types according to when it will be delivered. Pre-incident training would orient volunteers to the CSP in advance of the identification of a coastal storm threat. Just-in-time training will be delivered by CSP managers in the field at the time of the incident.

Training Description

Each year for five years, SPS will provide pre-incident classroom training to up to 5,480 volunteer managers recruited by OEM to take these two courses. In addition, self-paced computer training will be available to serve more than 27,000 volunteers.

To train volunteers at the time of an incident, five just-in-time training courses will be developed to train volunteers who will be categorized into five groups according to the jobs they will perform in the sheltering system.

Tracking and Evaluation

SPS will track volunteers that complete pre-incident training. SPS will conduct ongoing evaluations using several methods. First, we will develop and use questionnaires to elicit feedback from training participants to improve the content and delivery of courses.

Project Contact Information
Andrew Boyarsky
Project Director
Tel. 646-758-7901
E-mail: aboyarsky@gc.cuny.edu


For scheduling and registration of classroom courses:
Ivonne Garcia
Program Assistant
Tel. 646-758-7904
E-mail: igarcia@gc.cuny.edu


For support with on-line courses:
Tel. 212-652-2888
E-mail: csp-support@sps.cuny.edu


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