Georgia Department of Education
School Nutrition Division
Emergency Management Guide for Georgia School Food Authorities (SFAs)
A Message from Dr. Linette Dodson, GaDOE Deputy Superintendent of School Nutrition
Thank you for accessing this emergency management tool. We appreciate that there is an opportunity for each district to plan and prepare for future emergency needs that might occur. This resource is meant to provide information to assist districts with their emergency plans. We recommend working with the district administrative teams to ensure good communication occurs between school-level administrators and school nutrition staff in an emergency. Additionally, be sure to provide the necessary information and training to school level staff so they are well prepared when unanticipated circumstances occur.
Thank you for your continued commitment to providing quality school meals in your schools.
Definitions of Emergencies
Emergency: Unpredicted, localized events that disrupt lives and businesses. They often develop quickly and affect a limited geographic area, location, or population. Examples include, but are not limited to, water interruptions, isolated power outages, and loss of hot water.
Emergency Operations Plan (EOP):
Comprehensive written document that guides management efforts to minimize the negative impact of an emergency and ensures the safe production, service, and storage of food.
Disaster: Sudden events that have the potential to cause loss of lives, widespread destruction of property, and infrastructure disruption. Examples include, but are not limited to, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and large-scale power outages.
Disaster Management Plan: A comprehensive written document that describes the various processes needed for planning, organizing, coordinating, and implementing measures needed to respond to and mitigate the consequences of a disaster.
Food Defense Plan: A comprehensive written document that describes the measures needed to protect food from intentional contamination or tampering intended to cause public health harm or economic disruption.
Food Safety Plan: A comprehensive written document that includes specific instructions for safe food handling practices needed to control hazards that can jeopardize the safety of food. The plan focuses on three key areas: time and temperature control, personal hygiene, and prevention of contamination.
Food Safety Plan vs. Food Defense Plan: Both focus on preventing the contamination of food. Food safety addresses preventing the unintentional contamination of food and food defense focuses on preventing intentional contamination of food.
Power Outage: An interruption in the supply of electricity. While severe weather (ice, snow, high winds) and natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, floods) are common causes of power outages, there are numerous other causes, such as motor vehicle accidents involving utility poles; wildlife damaging utility wires; fuses, or transformers; construction work; high energy demands; etc
Communication with GaDOE SND through State Emergency Notification System (SENS) and Other Channels
It is important to stay in contact with the state agency during times of a disaster or emergency so that the state agency can assist and document information for the state and federal governments. This information will be used to make decisions related to support during current and future disaster or emergency situations.
Keep Contact Information Up to Date with GaDOE
GA SFAs should provide two 24-hour contact people at the start of each school year with their email addresses and cell phone numbers. Updates should be made annually and more often as needed. These individuals should be the main point of contacts for the School Nutrition Division during emergencies and disasters.
GaDOE SND will utilize the State Emergency Notification System (SENS) to communicate statewide alerts with SFA Emergency Contacts. In addition to signing up for SENS alerts, SFAs should define responsibilities with their local school administrators for monitoring, responding to, and disseminating information from their local community alert systems.
Role of School Food Authorities
As a school nutrition professional, you play a critical role in ensuring that children continue to have access to safe, high-quality school meals during emergency situations.
Understand Requirements
Develop an Emergency Operations Plan and submit it to the Local Health Authority for approval. Coordinate with local administration to establish an agreement with an emergency feeding organization that would coordinate community-wide shelter feeding when needed.
Georgia
Food Code:
Reopening Regulations
The Georgia Food Code states that a food service establishment that was ordered or otherwise required to cease operations (due to power/water interruptions) may not reopen until authorization has been granted by the regulatory authority. This includes school cafeterias. Typically, local health departments assess their individual areas for boil water issuances, do not drink/do not use issuances, or power outages. If that facility, schools included, were impacted, they will be notified regarding operating during such emergencies.
Conversely, if the school was not impacted by any of these interruptions, they would be able to resume food service without a reopening inspection. Meaning, if a school cafeteria is closed because of bad weather but sustained no water or power outages, that cafeteria can reopen without notifying the health department.
As a best practice, contact your local health authority to determine if authorization is needed prior to resuming service of any kind.
Preparedness
• Establish person(s) responsible for implementing emergency response and incorporate responsibilities into job description.
• Always have a written copy of your inventory and store it in a safe place.
• Maintain emergency contact list and communicate this information with your team and district.
• Prepare an emergency menu and maintain inventory for food/water/supplies related to this menu. The menu items for emergencies should be incorporated into normal operations so that staff are prepared and confident about what and how to prepare these items during emergency situations.
Documentation
• Assess inventory prior to, during, and after emergencies.
• Identify food safety hazards.
• Take pictures to document any damage to inventory, equipment, and buildings.
• Contact relevant agencies (e.g., State office, Vendors, USDA)
• Discard or destroy unsafe products as instructed.
• Maintain a count of number of meals served (if applicable).
• Identify any USDA food utilized and document the commodity code and number of cases used.
• Do not re-open until authorization has been granted by the local Health Department
Meal Counting and Claiming During a Power Outage
All School Food Authorities (SFAs) are required to have a back-up system for counting and claiming reimbursable meals served. For SFAs that normally use a manual method for meal counting and claiming, those procedures may be continued during a power outage. For those systems that use an electronic method, back up procedures need to be determined prior to an emergency.
All staff should be trained on the backup system. All staff should be trained on counting reimbursable meals, not just the cashier, in the event additional staff are asked to count at the point of service. Attendance counts, tray counts, entrée counts, and classroom counts are NOT acceptable methods for meal counting. The counting method must prevent duplicate meals from being counted, as second meals are not reimbursable. If more than one service line is used while the backup system is in place, a student may try to go through more than once and receive a second meal. The back up method should also prevent this situation from occurring. Refer to the Free and Reduced-Price Policy Attachment J for Collection and Service Procedures for a comprehensive list of approved nonelectronic counting methods. The backup method must yield accurate meal counts.
Standard Counting and Claiming
• One method is to print coded master rosters monthly and maintain them in a confidential manner to prevent overt identification of students’ eligibility status. These are then available to be used when the electronic point of sale system is unavailable. The student’s name can be checked off when they receive a reimbursable meal at the point of service. This process may be more time consuming.
• Another method is to record student names and/or student ID numbers to enter into the pointof-sale software once power is restored. Review the names on the roster at the end of service to ensure there is no duplication. This process may be more difficult as you must ensure that the names and numbers that are given are the correct ones for those students.
CEP or Provision 2
• If staff normally use an electronic point-of-sale software, during a power outage, the school could shift to a manual method such as using a numerical chart or counter.
Best Practices
Because emergency situations are often uncontrollable, unexpected, and relatively infrequent, it is crucial to follow recognized best practices to help produce positive outcomes. Below are some fundamental recommendations to help ensure you are ready to respond to and recover from an emergency as quickly as possible.
• An Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), must be tested, practiced, and evaluated to identify gaps and minimize mistakes when the plan is put into action. At a minimum, conduct tabletop exercises with school nutrition professionals and other key stakeholders. These exercises will allow you and your team to work through hypothetical scenarios to see if the written EOP would work in a real emergency.
• Strengthen relationships with your public health and safety partners, particularly your health inspector. Consider including these individuals in the development and updating of your EOP as well as in your tabletop exercises. These partners play a critical role in emergency response and having established relationships will maximize your ability to connect with the appropriate people.
• Training is crucial. In addition to training school nutrition professionals, extend training opportunities to school administrators, bus drivers, and custodians. Having a well-trained and unified support system is invaluable, especially when each person may bring a unique skill set or experience.
• Create an enhanced crisis communication plan and social media strategy. Because emergencies can be stressful and uncertain, you may be unable to think clearly and create key messages. As such, it is best to create a communication plan when you can calmly define what information should be communicated, who should receive the information, and how and when will the information be delivered.
• Remember, an EOP is more than a plan sitting on a shelf. It is a dynamic document that must be continually edited, updated, and practiced so the information remains relevant, and the execution remains efficient and effective.
Resources:
Food Safety During an Emergency (STAR Webinar)
Responding to Emergencies (STAR Webinar)
Self-Assessment (National Food Service Management Institute)
Steps for Emergency Preparedness (ICN)
Workplace Emergency Plan Fact Sheet (ICN)
Templates
Creating an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) may seem to be a complicated and daunting task as some of the vocabulary, processes, and approaches may be new to you. However, just as a Food Safety Plan provides specific instructions for controlling food safety hazards during all points in foodservice, an EOP provides specific instructions for minimizing the negative impacts of an emergency and ensures the safe production, service, and storage of food.
As you know, a Food Safety Plan is a written document based on Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) principles and contains Standard Operating Procedures that serve as the foundation for your school’s food safety program. Similarly, an EOP is a written document that contains guidelines and procedures to respond to incidents/hazards that could impact the safety and availability of food served to your students.
When developing an EOP, there is no need to start from scratch because there are multiple templates from which to choose. These templates provide an outline and guidance for creating an organized, systematic method to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergency incidents. But since each district is unique in its operation and available resources, there is no “one size fits all” template. As such, just as a Food Safety Plan must be customized to fit the needs of each school food authority, so too will your EOP need to be tailored to include information that is specific for your area.
Resources:
Designing an Emergency Preparedness Plan Template Forms (ICN)
Emergency Readiness Plan: Forms (USDA)
Emergency Readiness Plan: Guide (USDA)
Meal Service During Unanticipated School Closures
Schools may face unanticipated closures due to natural disasters, unscheduled major building repairs, court orders relating to school safety or other issues, labor-management disputes, or, when approved by the state agency, a similar cause. Unanticipated school closures prevent children from receiving educational instruction and the nutritious meals they would normally receive. During unanticipated school closures, state agencies and program operators may determine that operating the National School Lunch Program Seamless Summer Option (SSO) is a feasible option.
Please discuss available meal service options with your Area Consultant.
For Schools Approved to Operate the Seamless Summer
Option (SSO):
• An SSO site application must be set up in School Nutrition Online (SNO) and be approved before distributing meals to students.
• All area eligibility requirements are in effect. A site operating SSO during an unanticipated school closure must be at an eligible school or in the attendance zone of an eligible school.
• Meals served must only be claimed for days that school would have normally been in session. No weekend meals are allowed.
• Only 2 meals per day may be claimed.
Use of USDA Foods During Disaster Feeding
This section helps School Food Authorities (SFAs) understand how to successfully assist with disaster feeding response operations using USDA foods and includes text that is adapted from the USDA Foods Disaster Manual.
When a Disaster Hits
Your local disaster feeding organization may let you know you have been selected as a congregate feeding site for disaster response. You may have been pre‐designated as an approved response site, but it is not always possible to know ahead of time exactly where disaster feeding will be needed most. The use of USDA Foods for congregate disaster feeding does not require USDA approval if USDA Foods originate from the State where the disaster occurred and if the disaster is the result of a natural event (for example: hurricane, flood, snowstorm, etc.). However, you must notify the GaDOE SND Emergency Management Team of any disaster feeding activity at your site as soon as possible. If the disaster is not caused by a natural event (for example: explosion), pre-approval must be obtained from GaDOE SND and USDA FNS before USDA Foods can be used for congregate feeding.
As part of initial disaster response, USDA can provide local disaster relief organizations with USDA Foods already being stored at schools and State Agency warehouses.
Congregate meals containing USDA Foods can also be provided to disaster relief workers that are directly engaged in providing relief assistance at congregate meal sites. There are no limits to the number of relief workers who may be served, and they may receive meals as long as congregate feeding is provided. However, USDA Foods may not be used to feed those who are not directly engaged in providing relief assistance at congregate meal sites and may not be provided only to workers in lieu of disaster survivors.
SFAs must submit daily updates to provide GaDOE SND Disaster Management Team that include:
• Any school closings and disruptions to power or water
• Number and location of open shelters
• The population of each shelter
• Daily meals provided
• USDA Foods used for the congregate feeding (yes or no)
After the Disaster
SFAs should work with the GaDOE SND Emergency Management Team to submit appropriate documentation of the disaster response and USDA Food Usage.
If the disaster had a “Presidential Disaster Declaration”, USDA will replace the product or reimburse the value of the USDA Foods. For reimbursement to occur, GaDOE SND must submit information to USDA within 45 days after the end of the disaster assistance.
If the disaster or situation of distress did not have a Presidential Disaster Declaration, USDA will attempt to reimburse the value of USDA Foods used, if funds are available.
Information that is needed to request reimbursement includes: number of people served, commodity code and description of each food item, and number of cases used of each food item. This may include USDA Foods
direct delivery products, produce from the USDA Department of Defense Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (USDA DoD Fresh), and further processed end products.
If fruits and vegetables from USDA DoD Fresh are provided to disaster organizations for congregate feeding, the total dollar amount and quantity of fresh produce used during the disaster should be reported to GaDOE SND.
USDA Foods that are further processed by a food manufacturer may be used for disaster feeding. However, USDA FNS cannot reimburse for processing fees or additional ingredients other than the bulk USDA Food contained in the further processed end product. SFAs should take this into account when determining whether to release further processed end products for disaster feeding.
Common Questions Related to USDA Foods Disaster Response
A. What if my SFA utilizes single inventory?
GaDOE SND may request replacement of foods used from inventories in which USDA Foods are comingled with other foods if the SFA received USDA Foods of the same type as the foods used during the year preceding the onset of the disaster assistance. FNS will replace such foods in the amounts used, or in the amount of like USDA Foods received during the preceding year, whichever is less.
B. What if USDA Foods are left over at a disaster organization?
Once USDA Foods have been released to a disaster organization for use in congregate feeding, any USDA Foods not used should remain with the disaster organization. Due to food safety concerns, these foods should not be returned. Care should be taken to only send the disaster-feeding organization the amount of USDA Foods they plan to utilize.
C. Will USDA replace non-USDA Foods used for disaster response?
USDA FNS does not have the authority, or resources, to replace non-USDA Foods used for disaster assistance. These requests should be directed to the State disaster office for possible reimbursement by FEMA.
D. Will USDA replace USDA Foods that are lost during a disaster?
USDA FNS does not have the authority to replace foods that are lost, destroyed, contaminated, or rendered unusable as a result of a disaster or emergency. Agencies may wish to contact their insurance providers and FEMA for possible assistance and to file a claim for lost food
Georgia School Nutrition Division Emergency Management Team:
Holly Thaw
Procurement and Food Distribution Manager, hthaw@doe.k12.ga.us, 404-617-2048
Dr. Lauren Duplantis
Coordinated Support & Services Manager, lauren.duplantis@doe.k12.ga.us, 404-623-3713
Dr. Ellen Steinberg
Food Safety Specialist, esteinberg@doe.k12.ga.us, 470-728-3596
Angelica Flucas
Food Distribution Specialist, aflucas@doe.k12.ga.us, 404-416-0994
Seamless Summer Option (SSO) Emergency Management Considerations
As you work to create, review, and revise your district’s Emergency Operating Procedures, don’t forget about summer meals. While many congregate meals take place in your cafeterias and many of the same Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) stand, you still need to consider the following for all congregate and noncongregate sites:
1. Are all SSO sites set up and approved in School Nutrition Online (SNO) prior to the first day of service?
2. Have you communicated with your School Resource Officers (SROs) or other law enforcement? SROs could be a great asset as you determine school and non-school sites in addition to considering the safety of children and employees.
3. Is it feasible and safe for one person to run a site alone?
4. Who is the administrator in charge? If it is a school site, is the same person in charge as during the school year? If not (or if it is a community site), do you have contact information for the person in charge?
5. How will sites communicate back to the director? For rural or mobile sites, have you ensured that mobile phones/radios receive a signal?
6. Is a nurse or other medical personnel available, if needed? How will this be addressed for mobile routes? (Potential overheating, bee stings, allergies, etc.)
7. What are the plans if a significant weather event impacts service? What if this occurs after staff have dispersed to sites/mobile routes?
8. How are you monitoring heat and air quality advisories? For approved SSO outdoor meal sites without temperature-controlled alternative locations, the site may request a waiver to operate as a noncongregate site on days when the area is experiencing excessive heat as designated by the National Weather Service. In the event of a Heat Advisory, an Excessive Heat Warning, or an Excessive Heat Watch please contact your AC to utilize this waiver.
9. What is your procedure for ensuring that freezers and coolers maintain proper temperatures? Do you have a pre-approved operating plan if power is lost or disrupted?
10. During hot weather, the 2-hour rule becomes the 1-hour rule. The standard rule for Time and Temperature Control for Safety (TCS) Food is that food may not be left out of refrigeration for over 2 hours. But, if the temperature outside is ≥ 90°F, TCS food may not be left out for more than 1 hour.
11. Do you have an accurate physical count of inventory heading into SSO service?
12. Have you reviewed the summer process for claims, if applicable?
13. Do you and the site operators have a hard copy of the Emergency Operating Procedures for summer meal service?
While feeding students quality school meals is always our goal, the safety of our students and staff must always be at the forefront of our plans, even during the summer.
General Resources:
References and Resources
Resources on the Role of School Nutrition Directors in School Safety Efforts (Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center)
USDA Food Safety Resources
USDA Foods Program Disaster Manual | Food and Nutrition Service
Best Practices Resources
Food Safety During an Emergency (STAR Webinar)
Responding to Emergencies (STAR Webinar)
Self Assessment (National Food Service Management Institute)
Steps for Emergency Preparedness (ICN)
Workplace Emergency Plan Fact Sheet (ICN)
Template Resources
Designing an Emergency Preparedness Plan Template Forms (ICN)
Emergency Readiness Plan: Forms (USDA)
Emergency Readiness Plan: Guide (USDA)
NOTE: Real-time updates will be made to this resource as they become available.