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Marathon County emergency manager outlines trainings, exercises and hazard mitigation update for Wausau
Summary
Philip Rentmaser, Marathon County director of emergency management (serving the City of Wausau by agreement), briefed the committee on 2025 trainings and exercises and said a hazard mitigation plan update and continuity planning are scheduled for 2026.
Philip Rentmaser, director of emergency management for Marathon County (and, by agreement, the City of Wausau’s emergency management director), briefed the Public Health and Safety Committee on Oct. 20 about 2025 training, exercise and planning activities and plans for 2026.
Rentmaser said Wausau did not have any disaster declarations in 2025; nearby municipalities experienced weather events but none that reached the declaration threshold for the city. He listed training courses offered this year, including amateur radio workshops, ICS-300 (intermediate incident command), ICS-400 (advanced), practical applications of the incident command system, volunteer and donation management, evacuation/reentry training, and a Wisconsin cyber response team event.
Exercises this year included a Northern Lights long-term power outage tabletop run with the FEMA National Exercise Division, a tornado drill in April and a Wisconsin River HAZMAT tabletop conducted with SAFER. Rentmaser said an emergency response tabletop exercise — modeled on a tornado striking Marathon Park and including a HAZMAT element — is planned for November with Wausau Police and Fire.
Rentmaser also said counties have begun continuity of operations planning and encouraged city departments to undertake or update COOP plans. He said a five-year hazard mitigation plan update will kick off in January 2026 and that the city emergency management plan is due for revision in 2026.
“We did have some newsletters that we contributed to the city newsletter… I get more comments, more questions on sirens than anything else in the city,” Rentmaser said when noting outreach topics.
The committee heard the update and the chair said staff will be encouraged to participate in upcoming exercises and planning sessions.
