The Mayor of Fredericksburg has overall responsibility for emergency management, preparedness and response within the City. To assist him in managing the day-to-day activities, John Culpepper has been appointed as the Emergency Management Coordinator (EMC). Local emergency management programs include threat identification and prevention activities, emergency planning, providing or arranging training for local officials and emergency responders, planning and conducting drills and exercises, carrying out public education relating to known hazards, designing and implementing hazard mitigation programs, coordinating emergency response operations during incidents and disasters, and carrying out recovery activities in the aftermath of a disaster. The City also maintains an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) staffed by members of its various departments that is activated to manage the response to major threats and incidents and coordinate internal and external resource support. Fredericksburg operates under the National Incident Management System (NIMS) to standardize operations and response with other state and federal responders. We use the Incident Command System (ICS) as our incident management scheme. Under ICS, an Incident Commander typically directs the on-scene response by local responders from a field command post set up at or near the incident site. Responders from Gillespie and other neighboring counties and cities along with state and federal responders that have been called on to assist when local resources are not sufficient to deal with a major emergency are also integrated into the local Incident Command System. |
