Union Parish Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness
* Coordinate Local, State, and Federal plans, programs, warnings, communications, and public information from within the Union Parish Emergency Operations Center (EOC ) located in the UP Courthouse
* Coordinate Emergency Services to mitigate, prepare, respond and recover from disasters
* To assist any government, volunteer, busin
ess, industry, school, hospital or other entity with their emergency planning and programs
* To coordinate and direct recovery and restoration operations after disasters
Four phases of Emergency Management are:
Mitigation:
Activities designed to avoid or prevent disasters from occurring in the first place and to reduce the ill effects of those, which are unavoidable. Preparedness:
Being prepared to cope with unavoidable disaster. Trained personnel, planning, proper equipment, supplies and facilities are the essential elements of preparedness. Response:
Immediate and decisive actions taken to eliminate or reduce the severity of the incident. This may include warning, evacuation, suppression, rescue, apprehension, treatment and in some cases, withdrawal for safety reasons. Recovery:
Recovery is the return to a normal or improved state of being. It can be long term or short term. It can involve physical, mental and financial aspects. It includes repairing and rebuilding property, regaining public health and state of mind and regaining economic stability. Another function of Emergency Management is maintaining the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). The facility is self-contained and designed to remain operational in all environments including tornado, earthquake and chemical/biological attack. The EOC can be activated at several levels and in a major emergency it is the seat of local government. Elected and other agency officials can conduct not only emergency functions but also the necessary day-to-day business of city and parish government.
