Welcome to CRESA's new blog for the Emergency Management Program. Who is CRESA, you may ask? Well, CRESA stands for the Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency. We are a multi-faceted agency with 5 distinct divisions. Principally, we are known as the 9-1-1 Dispatch Center for the county, its seven cities and fire districts.
Besides
9-1-1 Operations, we also have several other divisions which include
Technical Services (which provides voice and data support for 9-1-1 Operations),
Emergency Medical Services (which provides support to the EMS Council and monitors ambulance contract compliance),
Administrative Services (which supports all of our programs) and finally, our
Emergency Management and
Homeland Security Program.
Through an interlocal agreement, Emergency Management provides response coordination for both emergency events and for pre-planned events which involve multi-agency coordination. Our program consists of 3 planners dedicated to all-hazard coordination, 2 homeland security coordinators who work with regional grants and domestic preparedness events, 1 administrative assistant and 1 program manager.
Six of our staff serve as Emergency Management Duty Officers which provide 24-7 monitoring of any threat or hazard to the Clark County area. We have specific response plans and protocols established for a wide variety of events which include, but are not limited to, flooding, windstorms, earthquakes, communicable diseases, extreme heat warnings, volcanic ashfall and terrorism. Duty Officers are also involved in regular coordination of Search & Rescue resources and hazardous material spill notifications.
When any threat or hazard becomes significant enough to require significant multi-agency coordination and support resources, the Clark Regional Emergency Operations Center may be activated to lend assistance.
The purpose of this blog is to provide direct communication with local residents and support agencies within Clark County, Washington. We aim to use this blog to provide information on localized emergency response efforts, countywide emergency response plans, and opportunities for training and community involvement.
We welcome your input, feedback, comments and questions as we embark on this blog.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Bledsoe
EM Mgt Manager
