2.3.5. Communication
The importance of communication network in emergency planning lies in its ability to get people to work together on a common task. Coordination of task accomplishment and resource management between different departments requires efficient and effective interagency communication. A communication network for the proposed emergency plan was prepared and presented in Figure 6. It should ensure that the flow of communications within the onsite response organization and between the organization and off-site response organizations and agencies is effective and uninterrupted. Network communication occurs between EAL-1, EAL-2, and EAL-3. The lowest Emergency Action Level (EAL-1) may be associated with chlorine release that is either under control or can be easily brought under control by plant personnel/incident identifier in the immediate area. This intermediate emergency level (EAL-2) is associated with chlorine releases that affect more than the immediate area but have not spread beyond the plant boundary. EAL-3 implies that the accident has the potential for beyond the plant boundaries. If EAL-1 cannot control the situation, it is communicated to EAL-2 and so on.