Strawman EOC Website Sitemap

Creating a sitemap is an early process to conceptualize a future website’s content - or to plan changes to an existing site. A sitemap is tangible but simple enough to iterate proposed site content in realtime.

Why a Sitemap?

What’s a sitemap & why might you be interested in having one anyway?!

Technically, a sitemap is a plain text file (albeit with a special format) that lists pages in your website that you want search engines to crawl and add to their results database.

A sitemap can also be used to quickly outline your (current or planned) website. Being abstract, it is easy to move or rearrange a website’s structure for discussion purposes. It can be represented as a mind-map, but for our purposes a basic outline of pages will suffice. Each row or line of the outline could be:

• a main menu heading,
• a section,
• a page, or even
• a portion of a page.

To create your own sitemap, start at a high level, just listing main sections of the website. Gradually add more detailed pages. To clarify a page’s content, eventually you can add details about a page’s style, functionality, and main components as there is consensus on the higher level plan.

This is specifically a “Strawman”, i.e., something to attack and tear apart. See what you like and care to adopt or burn and shred the parts that don’t make sense. Its obviously too large and bulky and expensive and time-consuming and duplicative to build the site below.

Use a tool or whiteboard that makes it easy to move sections of your website, or even pages around. A spreadsheet may be all you need.

Also take a look at other sitemaps, even the vast FEMA.gov sitemap for other ideas.

Public Pages

• Home Page

  • Welcome message identifying intended audience and website purpose
  • Brief introduction with your purpose and authority
  • Navigation to the rest of the site
  • Latest news and rotating content
  • Links to other websites for official emergency news and content (National Weather Service, InciWeb, State Emergency Division, etc.)
  • Login for website authoring

• Temporal Information (i.e., blog) Blogs are a great way to get out current emergency information. People understand them and form a habit of reviewing them, often subscribe for updates, and can easily search for older news postsin a chronological fashion.

(We do NOT recommend having a different site or page dedicated to emergency information. It confuses readers when they can least handle it, and creates problems as incidents cycle through various phases and during multiple overlapping emergencies.)

• “Timeless” information that only changes slowly over time, and is generally applicable.

  • Why Prepare, i.e., Hazards Ideally this matches and reflects your community THIRA, optionally with specific pages one your key risks, presenting current science and mitigation measures that can be taken.
  • How to Prepare
    • Local Residents
      • Homeowners
        • Go Kits
      • Renters
        • Go Kits
      • Homeless
    • Visitors, if you are a popular tourist destination
    • Businesses
      • Continuity Planning
      • Community Business Groups
  • Historical timeline or background
  • Staff Contacts
    • Organization Chart
    • Staff Roles and contact information
    • Current programs and planning efforts
  • Partners
    • How to Donate Whether seeking money or material – or more likely discouraging clothing, bedding and other cumbersome, donations that might force a complete warehouse setup(!), you can lay out your guidelines
    • How to Volunteer
      • What are the organizations, roles and credentialing expected of volunteers

Volunteer Pages

• Welcome
• Intro to your role in the EOC
  • Chain of Command
  • Job Description
  • Job Aides
• Standard Procedures
  • Scheduling
  • Training & Certification
  • Financial
• EOC Resources available
• Expectations/scope/limits/DEI resources
• Partners
  • ARES/ACS
  • CERT
  • Citizen Corps Council
  • Firewise
  • Neighborhood Watch

Partner Agency Pages

• Welcome
• Intro to your role in the EOC
• Standard Procedures
• EOC Resources available
• Expectations/scope/limits/DEI resources
• Partners
  • Local
  • County
  • State
  • Federal

Internal Staff Pages

• Sign-in (who has access, to all or part of the site?)

• Current Incidents

  • Incident (select current and old incidents of interest)

    • For Each Incident
      • IAP
        • Objectives
          • Strategies
        • Staffing
      • Situation Awareness
      • Missions

  • EOC (This will vary based on your EOC Model: ICS/ISM/Departmental)

    • COmmand Staff
    • Operations Section
    • Planning Section
    • Logistics Section
    • Administrative & Finance Section

  • Contact Info

    • EOC Sections
      • Units
    • Volunteers
      • CERT
      • ACS
      • MRC
    • Partners
      • Vendors
      • Regional Partners
      • State or County Agencies/Departments
    • Wiki
      • Alerting
      • User Guides
    • Std Op Procedures
    • Planning

• Welcome to new staff and volunteers

  • DEI
  • EOC training expectations and opportunities
  • Financial policies and reimbursement forms
  • Standard Operating Procedures
  • Guide to EOC Resources
    • electronic
    • facilities
    • manuals
    • audio/visual equipment
    • other documentation

• Reference

  • Training
  • Calendar
  • Contacts
  • ICS Forms
  • Wiki
  • Document Library
  • Passwords