Emergency Management

Preparedness is better than panic every time!

Image of the Royalston Emergency Management LogoThe Royalston Emergency Management Agency (REMA) strives to minimize negative effects of local, regional, or national emergencies and disasters of natural or man-made origins on the citizens of Royalston, by assessing and mitigating against known hazards, preparing thoroughly for, responding appropriately to, and pro-actively assisting with recovery from such events.

The role of Emergency Management starts well before an emergency occurs and continues long after the public safety response activities have concluded. Emergency Management efforts are divided into four stages.

The Mitigation effort is taking action now—before the next disaster—to reduce human and financial consequences later. It involves analyzing risk, reducing risk, and insuring against risk.  Effective mitigation requires that we all understand local risks, address the hard choices, and invest in long-term community well-being. Mitigation is achieved through regulations, local ordinances, land use and building practices.

Preparedness is a continuous cycle of planning, managing, organizing, training, equipping, exercising, creating, monitoring, evaluating and improving activities to ensure effective coordination and the enhancement of capabilities of concerned organizations to prevent, protect against, respond to, recover from, create resources and mitigate the effects of natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters

Response includes the mobilization of the necessary emergency services and first responders. This is driven by the type and kind of emergency and is likely to include a first wave of core emergency services, such as firefighters, police and ambulance crews.  They may be supported by a number of secondary emergency services. A well rehearsed emergency plan makes rescue and response more efficient.

The Recovery is work done to restore the affected area to its previous state. It differs from response in its focus; recovery efforts deal with issues and decisions that must be made after immediate needs are met.  Recovery efforts are primarily concerned with actions that involve rebuilding destroyed property, re-employment, and the repair of essential infrastructure.  Efforts should be made to "build back better," with a goal to reduce risks

Throughout all stages of emergency management work communication with the public is key.  One such tool available to us in Royalston is the CodeRED Emergency Notification System.  This allows us to call hundreds of phone numbers with a single action to let you know if there is an emergency in all of Royalston or just near your home.  To be effective this requires some effort by residents to be sure the system has every phone number you want to be contacted at.  To learn more about CodeRED and how you can improve it please follow this link.