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Board adopts updated 2025 Emergency Operations Plan; shifts to incident‑support model
Summary
Yavapai County adopted an updated Emergency Operations Plan that adds annexes (evacuation, resource distribution, mass care), introduces community lifelines and moves the county EOC model toward incident‑support organization to improve scalable staffing and coordination.
The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors adopted an updated county Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) on May 7, a document county officials said will guide preparedness, response and recovery for multiple hazards.
Ashley Alquist, county emergency manager, told the board the plan aligns with FEMA planning guidance and Arizona statute requiring counties to maintain emergency management programs. The 2025 update adds several annexes — alert and warning; evacuation and reentry; joint information system; mass care and sheltering; resource distribution; and volunteer and donations management — in part to reflect lessons learned from the 2023 spring floods.
The EOP now incorporates “community lifelines” — a situational framework to prioritize restoration of essential services — and shifts the county EOC organization from an Incident Command System replica to an incident‑support model and Emergency Support Functions (ESFs). Alquist said the ESF approach will make EOC staffing more scalable given limited emergency‑management staffing and will allow subject‑matter experts to staff liaison/ESF roles without full ICS credentials.
The plan was open for public comment in March and staff reported outreach through newspapers, radio and social media. Alquist said the county will continue community engagement, training and exercises, and plans to update a recovery plan and EOC guide; federal policy changes on “risk‑informed” planning will also be monitored.
The board approved the plan unanimously.
