ABSTRACT
In synthesis, the plan should be the result of a consensus among stakeholders. It should ensure that all groups and organisations that are due to participate in the activities it outlines are aware of their roles, are familiar with the plan in detail and are satisfied with the arrangements. This begs the question of the extent to which an emergency plan should be mandatory and binding upon its participants. Most plans work by consensus rather than coercion. Hence, they are regarded as operational instructions rather than legal instruments. In fact, when the response to an emergency is inadequate the disaster manager is likely to face enough challenges to his or her authority and enough accusations of incompetence for it to be inappropriate to treat emergency planning as one of the legal controls on emergency management. In this respect, planning strategies that regard emergencies first and foremost as law and order
DPM problems and provide measures to prevent the spread of anarchy and social disruption ]^2 are based on an enduring myth, not a sound principle, of human behaviour (Perry and
Lindell, 2003). As an afterword, it is notable that the axioms given above are numerous and
rigorous enough to be regarded as something of a counsel of perfection. That may be so, but when criteria, as opposed to standards, are applied to them (see below),
•1"" emergency plans do not necessarily have to pass every test: the standards represent minimum acceptable quality, whereas the criteria represent the ideal to be reached.
