Ocean Shores safety committee reviews multi-jurisdiction emergency plan, staffing shortfalls and recent house fire

Assistant Chief Mike Mandela told the Ocean Shores Safety Committee that the city has joined an interlocal agreement with Grey Harbour County to maintain a comprehensive emergency management plan that is refreshed every three years, and that the city will soon see a council resolution to adopt the 2025 version of that plan.

Mandela said the plan is large ("over 474" in size, as stated at the meeting) and that maintaining it is a condition of some federal funding streams. "Now you can talk about training and ask 1 thing, but now because we have a plan and now we have some training and we have some capabilities and resources in the city, we actually have to do some exercises during the course of the year," Mandela said, describing required incident command training, exercise types and a plan-review cycle.

Mandela described required training levels tied to incident command: higher-level personnel need Incident Command System (ICS) training while other staff typically need the ICS 100–200 series; he said many of those FEMA Emergency…