State launches emergency management mutual aid program

By Doug Hoell
Director, Division of Emergency Management

Mutual aid is a critical resource multiplier for those responding to emergencies and disasters in North Carolina. It simply is not physically or fiscally possible for each jurisdiction to own, maintain and staff all of the resources that might be needed to respond to significant events.

As a result of North Carolina's experience with a variety of disasters, the N.C. Division of Emergency Management has developed a voluntary statewide mutual aid program for all cities and counties. The benefit of joining is having access to all of North Carolina's response capability without incurring the costs to purchase or maintain an inventory of underused resources.

To join the mutual aid network, visit www.ncem.org and click on "Mutual Aid." Download the Mutual Aid Agreement, review it with your attorney, and sign and mail the agreement to: Carolyn Freitag, N.C. Division of Emergency Management, 4713 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-4713.

There are two options to use the mutual aid system:

• Call directly to neighboring participating jurisdictions and request assistance. It is advised that you initiate conversation and pre-event planning with your neighboring jurisdictions prior to any emergency need for mutual aid response.
• Call the Division's 24-hour operations center at (800) 858-0368.

There may be associated expenses, including costs to: pay salaries of those responding to the event, operate response equipment, replace resources needed before the next deployment, and repair any equipment damaged during the response. The requesting and responding jurisdictions are responsible for addressing associated response resource costs for events that do not qualify for federal disaster assistance under the Robert T. Stafford Act.

There are no specific limits on the kinds of resources that may be requested through the mutual aid system. Typically, mutual aid requests follow the emergency support functions addressed in emergency operations plans such as: law enforcement, emergency medical service, fire and rescue, incident management, communications, infrastructure support, hazmat teams, or search and rescue teams.

Our vision is to "package" all of North Carolina's response resources to fill typical requests or missions. That entails working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop and implement nationally accepted response resource standards, and to comply with those standards.

Already the N.C. National Guard has "mission packaged" its resources for emergency and disaster response. Mission packaging simply means that instead of ordering an ambulance, you would order a basic life support unit or an advanced life support unit with a driver, paramedics, communications equipment, life support equipment and supplies. Defining all of North Carolina's response capability in terms of mission ready packages and linking it all through our statewide mutual aid system is a long-term goal for the Division of Emergency Management.