Federal Response and Assistance Under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act

Emergency management staff must also consider those who own or have responsibility for animals, both as members of the community who may be affected by incidents and as a potential means of supporting response efforts. This includes those with household pets, service and assistance animals, working dogs, and agricultural animals/livestock, as well as those who have responsibility for wildlife, exotic animals, zoo animals, research animals, and animals housed in shelters, rescue organizations, breeding facilities, and sanctuaries.

Communities

Communities are groups that share goals, values, and institutions. Communities are not always limited by geographic boundaries or political divisions. Instead, communities may be faith-based organizations; voluntary organizations; neighborhood partnerships; advocacy groups; academia; cultural, social, and community groups; and associations. Communities bring people together in different ways for different reasons, but each community provides opportunities for sharing information and promoting collective action. These communities may have resources and information to stabilize community lifelines. Engaging these groups in preparedness efforts, particularly at the local, state, tribal, territorial, and insular area levels, is important to identifying their needs and taking advantage of their potential contributions.

Private Sector

Private sector organizations engage in incident response through their own internal response and continuity actions, the commodities they provide, their partnerships with each level of government, and their roles within the supply chain. Elements of the private sector are most often the providers of community lifeline services and have a key interest in the stabilization and restoration of their own operations and those of other infrastructure systems. Private sector organizations also play a vital role in ensuring communities and survivors have the services and resources necessary to respond to and recover from all types of incidents. The private sector, comprised of small, medium, and large businesses, spans nationally significant infrastructure to locally owned and operated businesses that, while small, are staples of the community. The private sector includes commerce; healthcare; private, cultural,and educational institutions; and industry,as well as public/private partnerships that have been established specifically for emergency management purposes. During an incident, key private sector partners should have a direct link to emergency managers and other relevant officials, such as those from public health, economic development, and community planning agencies and, in some cases, be involved in the decision-making process. Strong integration into response efforts can offer many benefits to the public and private sectors. As key elements of the national economy, it is important for private sector organizations of all types and sizes to engage in preparedness planning, conduct risk assessments, and identify critical community lifelines, functions, and resources that impact their businesses and communities. Understanding and collaborating on the cross-sector interdependencies and cascading effects of a potentially high-consequence incident on business, infrastructure, and supply chains improves community resilience and can help private sector organizations to quickly resume normal operations. Ultimately, the ability of the private sector to recover is inextricably linked to community recovery. Owners and operators of certain regulated facilities or hazardous operations may be legally responsible for preparing for and preventing incidents and responding when an incident occurs. For example, the Atomic Energy Act, as amended, and associated regulations require owners and operators of commercial nuclear powerplants and offsite response organizations (OROs) to maintain emergency plans in order protect the health and safety of the public. Onsite response organizations and OROs perform exercises, assessments, notifications, and training for incident response. Because of their