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Local emergency director receives top state award |
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Thursday, 01 May 2008 |
 By ELLEN MORTENSEN
Chief Managing Editor
Just six months in to his new job, Troy Smith has been awarded one of the highest honors in his field for the state of Nebraska. The Nebraska Association of Emergency Managers voted Smith “New Emergency Manager of the Year” for the state.
Smith was presented with the award at a banquet in Grand Island April 12. He was nominated for the award by Pat Gerdes of Holdrege, who served as interim Custer County Emergency Manager before Smith was hired to fill the position, vacated by George Rhodes.
“He (Smith) was very deserving of the award for the work he has done since he started,” stated Alma Beland, Region 26 Emergency Manager from Taylor.
Reflecting on his first half-year of the job, Smith says it is more responsibility than he expected. Overseeing the emergency plans for every department in Custer County is a huge task, and Smith says he is settling in but still has a lot to learn.
One of the biggest responsibilities Smith has is making sure all emergency response departments in Custer County are compliant with federal FEMA and NEMA regulation, or what is called NIMS compliance. This pertains to all area fire departments, EMS squads, sheriff’s offices, or anyone other department who may be responding to an emergency situation or serving as incident commanders.
NIMS compliance can also include area schools, hospitals and emergency operating command centers. Each of these parties, Smith explains, must know how the chain of command works and what their specific job is in the event of a natural or man-made emergency situation.
This compliance is essential for federal funding dollars. As part of the compliance standards, departments also are now required to have exercise, training and planning programs in place.
Smith says the biggest project he is currently working on is putting together a manual for Local Emergency Operating Plans (LEOP). These plans pertain to each village and city in the county, and Smith must familiarize himself with just what resources each of those communities has to assist with an emergency situation.
“I need to know how many fire trucks each town has, how many school buses and what their capacity is - even how many beds are in that community’s hospital,” Smith explained.
As part of that plan, each community is to have a designated shelter set up. Smith says when he took over as director none of the communities had a shelter, now all in Custer County do. He is pleased that he has been able to accomplish that within his first six months as director.
Smith just recently started working on a Debris Management Plan, and explains that Nebraska is a pilot program for the plan which is generated through FEMA.
“If we have a working plan in place by the end of 2008, FEMA will offer extra funding to our county,” says Smith. “They will also allow us to keep any money generated through the recycling of debris - money that used to go back to FEMA.”
In order to stay compliant with both FEMA and NEMA, Custer County must participate in a yearly exercise and a fully functional exercise every five years. A table-top exercise is planned for May 31, which will involve all 22 counties in the North-Central Region.
The scenario for the exercise will be a blizzard/ice storm, and will take place at Halsey National Forest. The objective of the exercise is to create better communication between the counties and establish necessary mutual aid.
All of these projects, along with the many others Smith is involved in, keep the new Emergency Management Director very busy. However, it is a job he says he enjoys and is finding very rewarding. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 08 May 2008 )
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