Utah's Preparedness Programs Are Worthy of Emulation

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) Many States are using Utah's Emergency Management Program as a model for their own programs. Brian Garrett, Deputy Director of the Utah Division of Homeland Security explains.

"We think this is a model for other states. We have already begun the discussion with FEMA Region. This started when we took several of our senior staff over and sat down with several of the senior staff from FEMA and spent two and a half days walking through our plant," says Garrett. "Now other States are following that example and are starting to set those meetings up to do the same thing with the regional office."

Utah's Division of Homeland Security has also created a business preparedness program worthy of emulation. The State's "Be Ready Business" campaign has the attention of preparedness organizations in many other States around the nation, says Garrett.

"Governor Huntsman and Commissioner Flowers made a commitment about a year and a half ago to make a major enfaces here in Utah on business preparedness. So we launched our ‘Be Ready Business' campaign," Garrett explains. "This is another program of ours that is actually getting some national attention. In fact our Program Manager is going to the national meeting of State Emergency Managers to present lessons learned from our program and hopefully help them start similar programs in their States."

Utah's Emergency Management Program was recently granted conditional accreditation from the Emergency Management Accreditation Program and will be working to gain full accreditation for the next nine months. To hear more from Garrett, go to the Midday Metro page at KCPW DOT ORG.

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