Superstorm Sandy's devastation puts disaster and emergency response plans front and center for public entity risk managers across the United States.

With limited resources and tightened budgets, public entity risk managers work with federal, state and local resources — and their communities — to address specific geographic risks and prepare for the next disaster.

The state of Washington, which has diverse natural catastrophe risks, from volcanoes and earthquakes to tsunamis and lahars, uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Incident Management System to streamline its emergency response to easily interact with federal resources in the event of a disaster, said Drew Zavatsky, section manager for the loss prevention program in the risk management division for the Washington State Department of Enterprise Services in Olympia, Wash.

The threat of a major disaster is none too real for Washington. “Our risk of a major earthquake like Japan … is at 40%,” Mr. Zavatsky said. “We're actually overdue.”

FEMA's emergency response system helps discern timing for critical city functions to be up and running in the first hours and days after an event and helps facilitate efficient interaction with federal resources.

“As you lay that out, it helps you prioritize that we absolutely have to assure that anything that could lead to an additional catastrophe is under control,” Mr. Zavatsky said. “One thing that 9/11 taught was that if we all speak different languages, it adds critical delay in assuring that the right service gets to the right person at the right time.”

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According to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States report on the Sep. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, New York responders and city officials experienced several breakdowns of communication.

“Always an issue after a disaster — we found this, too — is communicating effectively internally, and communication always seems to be something that we can improve on,” said Bret Waters, emergency management director for the city of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Around 32,000 residents were evacuated in El Paso County, Colo., and Colorado Springs because of last year's Waldo Canyon fire, which started in June and burned more than 18,000 acres and 345 homes, resulting in two deaths.

Among blizzards and nasty winter weather conditions, wildfires are a significant risk in Colorado Springs, as 25% of residents live in wildland-urban interface areas, Mr. Waters said.

Colorado Springs researches historical effects of previous disasters while understanding the ever-changing city landscape when designing its disaster plans, he said.

Prior to the Waldo Canyon fire, Colorado Springs mobilized citizens to conduct drills in those very areas where the fire occurred. Such drills go over evacuation processes, staging areas, and fire and police departments' procedures, he said.

With more than 50 schools, plants, warehouses and garages, Norfolk, Va., public school district faces considerable wind and flooding risks, said Dan Hurley, senior director of risk management and safety for the school district.

The City of Norfolk has an emergency operations center, which holds monthly planning meetings. The meetings include many of the city's important agencies and liaisons from the community.

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The center also holds neighborhood meetings to educate community members about evacuations, flooding areas and shelters, Mr. Hurley said.

“There's more communication now” through online communication systems that send necessary emails, updated website information and a geographic information system program that plots real-time street closures and damages, “so you can get a global perspective of what's going on in the whole city,” Mr. Hurley said.

When creating disaster plans, public entity risk managers and emergency officials must go beyond location risk, said Frank Russo, New York-based managing director of Aon P.L.C.'s global risk consulting unit.

“While an area's natural disaster profile can be fairly obvious, weather still has the potential to surprise and intensify, as was the case with Sandy, which melded with other storm-fronts to become a much more dangerous event,” Mr. Russo said.

Tools such as catastrophe modeling and other software that blend historical analysis, meteorology reports and other data points can sharpen a public entity's overall risk, he said.

Disaster and emergency response plans must consistently be updated and kept fluid, experts say.

Such plans “should always be considered a work in progress,” said Mary Breighner, Cincinnati-based vice president and global practice leader of FM Global's public entities, health care and education unit.

Anytime there's a loss, even if it's outside a public entity's jurisdiction, disaster recovery teams should come together and review the facts of the disaster and whether the particular event was adequately addressed in the plan.

“A great time to review and revise your plan in a painless way is when something terrible has happened and you have been spared,” Ms. Breighner said.