Emergency plans have long been a focal point of emergency management practice and research in China. Despite extensive work in this area, most studies approach the issue of emergency plans' inoperability from an external and normative perspective, often overlooking the practical challenges of implementation. Thus, understanding why emergency plans frequently lack operability necessitates a rather internal perspective, focusing on the intricate processes and real-world applications in their creation and deployment.

This article fills this gap by providing the authors' participant observation during the emergency plan revision process in B County. This article spans three critical stages: preliminary preparation, field investigation, and revision and review. During the initial stage, the authors engaged in the groundwork to understand existing frameworks and the specific needs of B County. This was followed by a thorough field investigation to gather firsthand data and insights from local stakeholders. The final stage involved revising and reviewing the drafted plans to align them more closely with realities.

Building on these experiences, this article constructs a three-dimensional framework of “Text-Fact-Action” to analyze the mechanisms determining the operability of emergency plans. This framework highlights the dual tensions—fit tension and transformation tension—that exist between the textual content of emergency plans, the complex realities they address, and the effectiveness of proposed actions. Fit tension refers to the challenge of ensuring that the normative texts of emergency plans accurately reflect the diverse and unpredictable factual complexities of real-world scenarios. Transformation tension pertains to the difficulties in translating these texts into effective, actionable measures during emergencies.

These dual tensions create significant challenges, resulting in a gradual divergence between emergency plan documents and actual responses. This divergence forms a theoretical logic explaining the persistent issue of inoperability in emergency plans. This article underscores that preparing emergency plans is crucial for improving emergency management capabilities and emphasizes the need for an integrated approach that considers textual accuracy, real-world complexities, and actionable effectiveness.

Through this participant observation case study, the article provides a deeper understanding and critical analysis of the functional limitations inherent in emergency plans. The firsthand data offers valuable insights into specific areas where these plans fall short and suggest practical directions for their future optimization. The findings contribute to the broader discourse on emergency management by offering a grounded and practical perspective on the challenges and potential solutions for enhancing the operability of emergency plans.