Mutual Aid in Times of Disaster:
Navigating EMAC in Emergency Management
By Jim Mullen
Credit Note: the bulk of the information below is taken from the National Emergency Management Association.
Note: The outpouring of mutual aid support to California’s wildfires, as well as North Carolina and Georgia and other disaster impacted states, is not an uncoordinated, spontaneous reaction. What the nation sees in major disasters is the activation of a “well- established capability of state-to-state mutual aid exists in the form the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). Ratified by the US Congress in 1996 (Public Law 104-321) 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northwest Mariana Islands have enacted legislation to become EMAC members.
Administered by the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) which represents state emergency management directors, EMAC offers assistance during governor-declared states of emergency or disaster through a responsive, straightforward system that allows states to send personnel, equipment, and commodities to assist with response and recovery efforts in other states.
The strength of EMAC and the quality that distinguishes it from other plans and compacts lie in its governance structure; its relationship with federal agencies, national organizations, states, counties, territories, and regions; the willingness of state and response and recovery personnel to deploy; and the ability to move any resource one state wishes to utilize to assist another state.
EMAC establishes a firm legal foundation for sharing resources between states. Once the conditions for providing assistance to a requesting state have been set, the terms constitute a legally binding agreement. The EMAC legislation solves the problems of liability and responsibilities of cost and allows for credentials, licenses, and certifications to be honored across state lines.
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Jim Mullen has spent 3 decades in emergency management, including 12 years at the local level as director of the City of Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management and 8 and a half years as Washington State’s Emergency Management Division Director. Jim retired from state service in March 2013. Jim also served as President of the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) from January 2011 to October 2012.
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