Emergency Management in County Government: A National Study, published by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia, was commissioned by NACo to examine key aspects of county emergency management, including its organizational structure, budgets and funding, personnel and training, use of technology, and ways counties collaborate with other government entities and nongovernmental organizations.
The study found that:
- Most emergency management agency heads (77 percent) have duties beyond emergency management.
- The 2005 hurricane season had little effect on the budgets of emergency management agencies in county government. Only 39 percent of counties anticipate a budget increase, and of those that do, only 12 percent attribute the increase to the experience on the Gulf Coast in 2005.
- Between 58 and 84 percent of U.S. counties participate in federal grant programs.
- Only 38 percent of U.S. counties do not have a mobile operations command unit, and one in four has no alternate command center of any type.
- Eighty percent of U.S. counties use Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, but only 14 percent have this capacity within the emergency management agency.
- Most collaborative activities have been limited to informal agreements and joint planning activities. Only about half of U.S. counties have formal agreements in place, usually with a state agency or other county governments.
- Respondents' assessment of emergency preparedness was best for county police/sheriff and Þre departments. It was signiÞcantly lower for other county departments, schools and other organizations within the jurisdiction.
- About two-thirds of counties have conducted some type of emergency management training exercise within the last year.
- Fifteen percent have not done so in more than two years.
- Most county disaster plans do not address special populations. This is especially true for minorities, non-English-speaking persons, homeless and indigent persons.
Other data in the study suggest that counties in the West and Midwest believe themselves or their communities to be slightly more prepared for disasters as compared to the self-assessment of counties in the South and Northeast. Thirty-nine percent of the counties in the West and Midwest reported that their governments' departments and agencies are prepared to a "great extent" for a disaster, while 31 percent in the Northeast and 35 percent in the South made the same observation. Likewise, higher percentages of counties in these regions report that their fire departments are greatly prepared, (55 percent, Midwest, and 60 percent, West) versus 53 percent in the Northeast and 52 percent in the South.
More Midwestern counties believe their schools to be better prepared for a disaster than other regions. Sixty-one percent reported that their schools were prepared to a "very great," or "great" extent. This compares to 44 percent in the South, 41 percent in the Northeast and 29 percent in the West.
Health care facilities in the Northeast, however, are seen as better prepared by their counties than those in other areas of the nation. Fifty-nine percent of counties in the Northeast rate their health care and hospital facilities as prepared to a "great extent," followed by 54 percent of counties in the Midwest, 53 percent in the West and 50 percent in the South.
Asked to rate their citizens preparedness levels, most counties in all regions gave only moderate or lower grades: 47 percent overall reported that their citizens were prepared to a "moderate extent," while 38 percent of the counties surveyed said their citizens were prepared to "some extent." Only 2 percent believed their citizens to be very greatly prepared and 11 percent pegged their citizens to be greatly prepared.
The complete report, Emergency Management in County Government: A National Study, is available to view or download on the NACo Web site in the "surveys" section of the County Resource Center.
