EM Overview

Emergency Management Overview

Emergency management programs at the local level are responsible for providing overall pre-disaster planning and other programs such as training and exercises for natural and human-caused disasters that can affect a community. Many people think of emergency management in terms of a natural disaster such as a fire, tornado, flood, or ice storm. However, emergency management also embraces human-made disasters such as hazardous materials spills, major transportation accidents, large fires, and, as we have unfortunately seen, terrorist events.

The Park County Office of Emergency Management works directly under the Board of County Commissioners. The county emergency manager works closely with all of the emergency responders in fire, emergency medical, police and public works, as well as working closely with the emergency response managers as they collectively prepare for community emergencies. The emergency manager works closely with governments at the local, regional, state and national levels to build effective emergency management nationwide.

Regardless of the type of hazard, it is the responsibility of the emergency management team to help put in place mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery programs to deal with various hazards.

	Mitigation - If communities cannot prevent disasters, they can at least reduce the damaging impact. Mitigation includes activities that eliminate or reduce the chance of occurrence or the effects of a disaster.
	Preparedness - Preparedness includes planning how to respond when an emergency or disaster occurs and working to marshal the resources to respond appropriately when an emergency is imminent or hits.

Emergency Exercises	Evacuation Plans
Fire Drills	Storm Shelter Construction
Contamination Monitoring

Response - Covers the period during and immediately following a disaster. During this phase, public officials provide emergency assistance to victims of the event and try to reduce the likelihood of further damage. The local fire department, police department, rescue squads, and emergency medical services (EMS) units are the primary responders.

Evacuation	Search and Rescue
Firefighting	Emergency Medical Services
Police Activiities	Damage Assessment
Incident Reporting

Recovery - It continues until all systems return to normal or near-normal operation. Short-term recovery restores vital life-support systems to minimum operating conditions Long-term recovery may go on for months --even years -- until the entire disaster area returns to its previous condition or undergoes improvement with new features that are less disaster-prone.

Reconstruction	Reforestation
Reassess Existing Regulations	Counseling Programs

Each phase links to the others. Activities in one phase may overlap those in the previous. Preparedness moves swiftly into response when disaster strikes. Response yields to recovery at different times, depending on the extent and kind of damage. Similarly, recovery should help trigger mitigation, motivating attempts to prevent or reduce the potential for a future disaster. The disaster phases have no beginning or end, so recognition of a threat can motivate mitigation efforts as well as an actual emergency can.

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