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Scotts Bluff County 911 trainer recounts TERT deployment to Asheville following mudslides
Summary
Celinda Howard, a county 911 training coordinator, described deploying with Nebraska’s TERT team to Asheville, North Carolina, to assist overwhelmed dispatch centers after deadly mudslides. Howard explained deployment requirements, costs and conditions and said a state‑level EMAC request facilitated reimbursement.
Celinda (training coordinator for Scotts Bluff County 911) briefed commissioners on her recent deployment with the Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce (TERT) to Asheville, North Carolina, after catastrophic mudslides.
Howard described TERT (created after Hurricane Katrina) as a program that trains and deploys dispatchers to supplement overwhelmed communications centers. The out‑of‑state deployment came through EMAC (Emergency Management Assistance Compact) and Nebraska Emergency Management (NEMA); a state coordinator provided a cost estimate of roughly $46,000 for a four‑person team covering travel and labor for the deployment. Howard said Nebraska’s APCO chapter provided basic supplies, teams slept in gymnasiums and later FEMA staging, and staff worked exhausting 12‑hour shifts handling hundreds of medical and other calls in extremely challenging conditions.
Howard described the emotional toll of the mission—dispatchers who had lost family members still worked, and staff encountered destroyed homes and infrastructure—and thanked the county for authorizing the deployment and for state assistance with reimbursement. Commissioners praised the service as an example of regional mutual aid and noted the county could call on trained responders in future disasters.
