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TUSCALOOSA COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
I interned with the Tuscaloosa County Emergency Management Agency starting in August of 2022. I originally became interested in emergency management at the age of 10 when Tuscaloosa was hit by a massive tornado in 2011. My home church was destroyed, which led to involvement in disaster assistance and the rebuilding process at a young age. That left a major impact on me which ultimately led me to hoping to pursue a career in emergency management.
Part of my internship involved community education and engagement and the other part involves emergency management operations and preparedness. I was involved in community education and engagement from day one. I helped create documents to take to local elementary schools to educate about disaster preparedness. I also helped work an RDS (regional distribution site) for hand sanitizer that we received as overstock from the state. We contacted all local schools, churches, nursing homes/ assisted living, medical facilities, etc. and set up for various entities to come pick up boxes of sanitizer.
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The emergency management operations and preparedness side is more situational and not involved in the daily job tasks. I completed incident command training through FEMA and U.S. Homeland Security. These online classes discuss the best practices on how to handle any disaster response involving multiple agencies, law enforcement, etc. I also completed CERT (community emergency response team) training in November 2022, where local partners and citizens gain a broad overview of how to best help in a disaster situation. I was also recognized for my assistance in securing a grant for a local fire department to receive communication radios.