Roles and Responsibilities

Darke County EMA is the central point of coordination within the county for response and recovery to disasters. The primary focus of the agency when not in a response or recovery mode is to ensure that the county and the 50,000 citizens residing in it, are prepared to respond to an emergency or disaster and to lead mitigation efforts against the effects of future disasters.

In the past, emergency management had focused primarily on preparedness. Often this involved preparing for enemy attack. Today community preparedness for all disasters requires identifying resources and expertise in advance, and planning how these can be used in a disaster. However, preparedness is only one phase of emergency management. Current thinking defines four phases of emergency management : mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.