Emergency Management
Department Description
The Emergency Management Department’s mission is to develop an integrated, comprehensive Emergency Management Program to serve our whole community. The Department conducts extensive planning, operational readiness, mitigation, and training and exercise activities. Through a cooperative effort, the Department ensures the County's readiness to respond to and recover from emergencies.
Core Services
Emergency Management Preparedness
The Department is responsible for identifying Pasco County’s vulnerability to hazards and helping the community cope and recover from disasters. The Department accomplishes this through emergency preparedness activities, such as identification of areas at great risk; developing plans that will guide us through a disaster; educating the public; reducing risk to houses, neighborhoods, and businesses; and training responders and citizens in the skills needed to act in the face of a crisis.
Emergency Management Operation
The Department also focuses its efforts on emergency operations for those times when events require multiagency coordination and collaboration. The Emergency Operations Center (EOC) facility can host over 100 personnel during activations. The Emergency Management Operations team ensures the EOC and Emergency Management team is ready to activate at a moment's notice.
Emergency Management Mitigation
The Department is responsible for the coordination and collaboration of mitigation planning throughout the County and municipalities, through the maintenance of the Local Mitigation Strategy (LMS) plan and its Working Group. Compliance of the LMS, in accordance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), allows Pasco County to remain eligible for federal grant opportunities that work to address the vulnerabilities and reduce effects of the identified hazards. Proper mitigation planning and implementation is the key to long term solutions that help reduce physical, financial, emotional, and stress related impacts for the whole community.
Emergency Management Recovery
The Department plans and coordinates individual assistance and public assistance activities by purchasing resources through grants, creating and managing stakeholder groups, and developing plans needed for recovery activities such as Disaster Recovery Centers.
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Funding Sources
GOALS & OBJECTIVES
The Emergency Management Department strives to meet the following levels of service:
- Create, update, and/or review 15 plans per month
- Achieve EMAP accreditation by September 2023
- Conduct at least 3 trainings or exercises per month.
* 95% satisfaction or higher achieved in end of course survey
- Review Comprehensive Emergency Management Plans (CEMP) for Healthcare Facilities within 30 days of submission (F.S.S. allows for 60 days).
- Submit at least 30 grant applications annually for Countywide, EM, and homeowner projects.
* 20% grant contracts received annually
- Contact at least 150 Special Needs registered citizens per month.
- Conduct at least 24 preparedness speaking engagements annually.
* 90% satisfaction or higher achieved on public education surveys
- Produce 50,000 disaster guides to distribute to County buildings, events, and through mail to households in the High Hazard Vulnerability Zone.
Volume of Work
The Emergency Management Department currently has the following volume of work scheduled for March – September 2021:
- 139 plans to be created, updated, or reviewed.
- 119 trainings including Pasco U, online FEMA courses, virtual classroom courses, and virtual conferences.
- 76 or more CEMP reviews to be conducted (based on last year’s numbers).
- 70 grant meetings and monitoring/management activities to be completed.
- 2,167 Special Needs residents to be contacted.
- 42 public education events.
- Produce 50,000 2022 Disaster guides and 5,000 in Spanish, distribute them to County and Federal buildings, and mail 30% to residents in the HVZ.
- 3 Public Assistance reimbursement contracts were finalized.
- 146 MPUDs reviewed.
- Professional development activities including participating in the State All-Hazard Incident Management Team, Florida Emergency Management Preparedness Association certification, State of Florida Advance Professional Development Series certification, FEMA professional Development Series certification, and Leadership Development Program participation to be completed.
