Development of a plan falls under the preparedness, protection, and prevention functions of emergency management. These are continuous processes that are ongoing whether an event occurs or not.

Preparedness refers to actions taken to plan, organize, equip, train, and exercise to build and sustain capabilities necessary to prevent, protect against, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and recover from threats that pose the greatest risk.

Protection refers to capabilities necessary to secure critical infrastructure or key resources against acts of terrorism and all disasters.

Prevention refers to capabilities necessary to avoid, prevent, or stop a threatened or actual act of terrorism. Prevention involves actions taken to avoid an incident or intervene to stop an incident from occurring.