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Region 51 emergency management reports grants, hazard-mitigation work and local incident response; announces poster-contest winners
Summary
Region 51 Emergency Management delivered a quarterly report to Lincoln County commissioners detailing grant reimbursements, hazard‑mitigation and emergency‑operations planning work, recent wildland and structure fires, and upcoming training. The office also presented winners of a regional severe-weather poster contest.
Brandon Myers, director of Region 51 Emergency Management, gave a quarterly briefing to the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners covering grants, hazard‑mitigation planning, exercises and recent incidents, and presented awards to winners of the Region 51 Severe Weather Awareness poster contest.
Myers reported submission of the 2024 EMPG grant request for $13,218.83 and described a range of grant reimbursements and pass-through hazard-mitigation and SHSP (State Homeland Security Program) reimbursements submitted during the quarter. He said the region sent quarterly invoices to Dundee and Hitchcock counties for their approved budgets and noted that BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) grant funding was not available this year; the state emergency-management agency was assisting to find alternative mitigation funding.
Myers said the office continues to update county LEOPs (Local Emergency Operations Plans) and that NEMA has stopped paying for an online planning platform previously used statewide, requiring a return to binders for local plans. He reported the region supported numerous trainings, exercises and planning meetings, and monitored recent incidents including a chainsaw-related fire and a rural wildland fire on North Maxwell Road in Lincoln County.
The director explained recent outreach including CERT training, hospital training support and coordination with the city of North Platte for recovery scoping after a prior severe-weather event. He also described logistical details — such as plans for decommissioned online LEOP tools and the state-mandated requirement to keep a copy of the LEOP available at the library while sensitive contact information is excluded from public versions of plans.
After the briefing, Myers and staff presented awards for the Region 51 Severe Weather Awareness poster contest. Staff said they received 163 posters across the three-county region (125 from Lincoln County) and recognized local students with county and state honorable mentions. Organizers said selected posters will be displayed in the courthouse hallway and winners received certificates, art supplies and challenge coins.
Commissioners asked several operational questions about the Bailey Yard tabletop drill, interagency collaboration and the disposition of dewatering and LEOP materials. Myers said collaboration is improving in some exercises and that staff are returning to physical binders for LEOP distribution while retaining electronic copies for internal use. No formal board action accompanied the report; commissioners thanked Region 51 staff for their work and for organizing the poster contest presentation.
