Glynn County EMA reports increased exercises, expanding CERT and LEPC outreach ahead of hurricane season

Glynn County’s Emergency Management Agency (EMA) told commissioners it met exercise and community-engagement goals for the year, expanded CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) classes and is working to improve the county’s partner contact lists and sheltering procedures ahead of the hurricane season.

The agency said the emphasis going forward will be on higher-quality, targeted exercises — business continuity, shelter management and multiagency functional drills — rather than simply increasing the number of “check-the-box” drills required by grants.

Andy, Glynn County emergency management staff (title not specified in the transcript), said the county recorded roughly 34 community-engagement activities in the review period and that those events will be categorized more precisely next year (for example, business outreach, schools, Tier II facilities). He said that EMA is increasing school safety support and that the county will include more private-sector partners in planned exercises.

On training and volunteers, EMA said community interest in CERT remains strong: a recent open enrollment session drew about 26 participants, and staff plan to host at least three CERT classes in the coming year. Andy said the county is also expanding position-specific National Incident Management System (NIMS) training and incident-management-team courses locally so more residents and agency staff can fill key roles during larger incidents.

EMA staff described efforts to make partner communications more reliable. Andy said the agency manages a distribution list of roughly 300 partners but wants to simplify distribution by sending messages to lead contacts at partner organizations and asking them to forward materials internally, rather than the EMA office trying to maintain the contact list at the individual level. Officials said they are exploring a private web page and a QR-code approach to keep partner contact and resource lists live and accessible to responders.

The Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) will resume quarterly presentations from facilities that store hazardous materials, Andy said, to improve hazmat awareness and operational readiness. Those briefings are part of the county’s effort to meet state and grant reporting expectations and to protect the at-risk population.

No formal votes were recorded. EMA staff said that they will continue to refine exercise design, work with the county’s public-health partners on sheltering and focus a staff member on at-risk populations and special-needs planning.

Ending: EMA officials said their next steps are to refine metrics and categories for community outreach, expand CERT and position-specific NIMS training, update partner distribution processes, and pursue more targeted sheltering and business continuity exercises before the next busy storm season.