Emergency management span of control : optimizing organizational structures to better prepare Vermont for the next major or catastrophic disaster

Abstract

During a statewide disaster in Vermont, one of the most important actions Vermont Emergency Management should take during the response phase is to maintain awareness of the situation and provide coordinated logistical support. If the State does not understand what is occurring, or is not able to perform resource coordination in support of response efforts across the State, then local and state responses are not coordinated, and actionable federal requests for assistance cannot be articulated. Forty-five states have county emergency management structures between municipal and state structures, which regionalize emergency management within those states. Of the five states without county emergency management structures, Rhode Island has 39 municipalities, Connecticut and Massachusetts have established regional emergency management structures that do not align with counties, New Hampshire has 234 municipalities linked to the state emergency management center, and the State of Vermont has 251 municipal Emergency Management Directors who are linked directly to a single state Emergency Operations Center. This paper examines emergency management span of control nationally, surveys emergency management directors in four New England states, and proposes a regional construct for emergency management in Vermont, to enable effective emergency management during the next man-made or natural disaster.