August 2025, is the first ever National Emergency Management Awareness Month. Why does this matter? Emergency managers are problem solvers - the ones you call 24/7/365 when an incident requires coordination across multiple services, agencies, or disciplines, even beyond traditional public safety. They help communities and corporations understand their risk, build resilience, navigate crises, and know what to do when disaster strikes.
Dennis Jones, Director of Chatham County Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) sums up the importance of emergency management. Quote from August 8th Commission Meeting.
"Our main mission is to plan and prepare the citizens of Chatham County and the governments within Chatham County, within the Chatham County borders. So we develop county wide emergency operations plans which covers all hazards, not just hurricane threats. It includes technological hazards, other natural disasters, human caused hazards.
We coordinate community preparedness programs, trainings and exercises throughout our area. We identify and analyze hazards that can impact the community. We coordinate resources and personnel when it does cause time for us to to interact within a response effort. We develop the Emergency Operations Plan for the county. When the chairman issues a local state of emergency, that emergency operations plan essentially becomes the Bible for the response effort, not only for Chatham County, but for all the municipalities within Chatham County.
We support short term and long term recovery efforts such as sheltering, debris removal, restoring utilities. We coordinate long term recovery efforts, including disaster assistance programs and rebuilding we also look at mitigation efforts that we could implement across the county and its jurisdictions to minimize the effects of those natural or technological hazards.
We also conduct public education campaigns about preparedness. Again, it's all about preparing our citizens and our municipalities for those threats that affect Chatham County. All of this is accomplished through a small but mighty team..."
Director Dennis Jones discusses why he got into emergency management in this short video.
Video below is a clip from the August 8th Chatham County Board of Commissioners Meeting. The Commission proclaimed August 2025, as Emergency Management Awareness Month.
The Chatham County Board of Commissioners proclaimed August 2025, as Emergency Management Awareness Month, highlighting the critical role of emergency managers in preparing for and responding to disasters.
The proclamation was supported by the International Association of Emergency Management and the National Emergency Management Association. Chatham County Emergency Management team, led by Director Jones, was recognized for their extensive training, certifications, and dedication.