Friday, 13 October 2006 00:49
Training of County's Emergency Response Staff?
Counties statewide must train their emergency response staff and other county staff members to remain eligible for federal grant funds related to natural disasters or terrorist attacks. These federal dollars are very important to all counties, especially small counties like our own Amador, that depend on these Federal Emergency Management Agency dollars for emergency situations such as road repairs from last winter’s and spring’s storms. Amador County supervisor OK'd the training program known as the National Incident Management System. The training consists of at least one all-day session for employees, and may include some online coursework.
The training provides "common sense" information about who is in charge during an emergency and what each person's role is as well as providing a structure to maintain order during a crisis. The importance of this training is that many of the county personnel and others that are trained through this program to help in emergency situations are not emergency workers, but everyday employees that are usually helping citizens with building permits, paying property taxes, and building inspections, just to name a few. This program maximizes the government’s ability to be put in action in a crisis by maximizing its employees. According to Under Sheriff Karl Knobelauch, The County and other municipal employees do have mandates on attending the training. The Sheriff’s Department currently oversees the trainings as the over arching entity currently in charge of emergency services here in the county. A small fraction of the yet-to-be-estimated training costs will be reimbursed by the federal government.
