Last Updated on 5/30/2012

Published on 2/20/2012

Thanks to four days of highly specialized and intense training, officials in Georgetown County and other state agencies are better trained and prepared to respond in an emergency situation.
After a lengthy application and review process, Georgetown County was selected to participate in the Integrated Emergency Management Course (IEMC) — Hurricane Preparedness and Response — provided by the Emergency Management Institute (EMI) in Emmitsburg, Maryland, Jan. 23-26.  The IEMC program has been conducted at EMI since 1982. 
Early in the course, an emergency scenario unfolded in sequence with classroom-style lectures, discussions, and small-group workshops.
As the course progressed, scenario-related events of increasing complexity, threat, and pressure occurred.
Participants developed emergency policies, plans, and procedures to ensure an effective response.
The course culminated in an emergency exercise designed to test participant knowledge, awareness, flexibility, leadership, decision-making, and interpersonal skills under rigorous pressure in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) environment.
Participants were challenged to use the new ideas, skills, and abilities in addition to their own knowledge and experience.  In this way, the IEMC allowed individuals to rehearse their real-life roles in a realistic emergency situation, while at the same time, identifying additional planning needs. 
Georgetown County Administrator Sel Hemingway participated in the training and was impressed.
“This training opportunity was ‘priceless’ for our Emergency Management team,” he said.
“The facilities and instructors were top notch, and we were afforded the opportunity to work together as a team without our workplaces and homes competing for our time. This environment enabled us to work through a realistic hurricane exercise, and ultimately allow us to identify the things that we do well as well as exposing our weaknesses. We will use these lessons to improve our process in an effort to be better prepared to protect the lives and property of our citizens.”
Chris Eldridge, Administrator for the City of Georgetown, agreed.
“The City must be prepared to deal with any disaster and the Integrated Emergency Management Course provided the City the opportunity to work with the County and other agencies in a simulated hurricane exercise. Through the experience, we learned to work with one another in an effort to harmonize operations in the event of an emergency or disaster. Post course, we came away with an increased awareness of identifying not only our strengths, but our weaknesses as well. We now have the opportunity to create new and better emergency management standards and disaster risk reduction for our community.”
Participants included representatives from state and county Emergency Management; National Weather Service; Emergency Medical Services; city and county fire departments; Georgetown Hospital System; County Sheriff’s Office; City Police Department; County Parks and Recreation; city and county government; members of County Council; Georgetown County Chamber of Commerce; Georgetown County School District; Georgetown County Library; S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control; S.C. Highway Patrol; S.C. Army National Guard; Santee Cooper; Santee Electric Cooperative; American Red Cross; AshBritt Environmental; The Salvation Army; city and county Public Works; and Georgetown County Water and Sewer District.
Skilled EMI exercise specialists conducted a pre-course analysis in the County in order to collect location information, identify critical infrastructure, study transportation systems, and analyze current response plans.  From this information, the exercise was built to test Georgetown County’s planned approach to hurricanes, and to surface issues for which the participants may need to re-evaluate and develop corrective action plans.
The course helped participants gain the skills and knowledge to better prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural or manmade disasters that may affect Georgetown County.
Sam Hodge, Emergency Management Director for Georgetown County, is well aware of the importance of the training provided.
“This type of course is important to any county that faces disasters,” he said. “Bringing together all the team players to train in a real world exercise builds a team that is trained and prepared to better serve the citizens and visitors when the real disaster happens.
“The facility and instructors who make up FEMA’s National Training Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland, are second to none. Taking 72 members of our Georgetown Team just makes all of us better prepared when a real emergency hits Georgetown.”

— From Georgetown County Emergency Management