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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.
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.