OFFICE OF EMERGENCYMANAGEMENTRoger EbnerDirectorThe Office of EmergencyManagement is responsible forleading the City in planning,preparedness, responsecoordination, and recoveryfor emergencies, large scalecitywide events, and majordisasters.“The Office of EmergencyManagement administers anintegrated program, partneringwith the community toprovide a comprehensive andunified approach to enhancingdisaster preparedness andcommunity resilience. Ourgoal is to be a national modelof best practices in emergencymanagement.”The new Alternate EmergencyOperations Center (AEOC) wasoperational for the <strong>2013</strong> AlbuquerqueInternational Balloon Fiesta (AIBF).Prior to its inception, the Office ofEmergency Management, TechnicalServices, and the Real Time CrimeCenter (RTCC) staff worked diligentlyto develop, purchase, install, andtrain personnel on new equipmentand software. Two projectors, threetelevisions, four dual monitors,several parrot cards, and twoprojector screens were purchasedand installed throughout the AEOCand policy rooms. Connectivitybetween the RTCC, AEOC,and Policy Room was bridged.Information in the RTCC was able tobe shared among all of the projectorscreens and computer monitors inthe AEOC; as well as the televisionmonitors in the Policy Room.The lack of Emergency Managementsoftware spurred the TechnicalServices Division and RTCC staffto create a temporary system. Forthe AIBF, staff from throughout theCity and APD attended two-hourblocks of training, working the actualevent with current information. TheAIBF, along with the AEOC, was anoverall success. Personnel left witha better understanding of emergencymanagement, the concept of theirrole in the Emergency OperationsCenter (EOC), the data that theywere responsible for collecting andreporting, and how to report thatinformation on the Sharepoint site tothe Emergency Manager. The AEOCis now available for any future eventactivations.Five large-scale training exerciseswere conducted with various partneragencies. Examples of the exercisescenarios are a collapsed buildingresponse with the U.S. Search andRescue Team-NM Task Force 1and the federal Disaster MedicalAssistance Team; a Sunport aviationaccident exercise; a medical mass24casualty exercise involving thedistribution of antibiotics, vaccines,and other chemical antidotes; anda flood response exercise with localflood control agencies.The CERT Program trains individualsin basic disaster response skills,allowing them to be better preparedfor disasters and to develop localCERT teams to assist in disasterresponse. The local programassisted at many events andprovided over 11,000 hours ofvolunteer services. CERT supported20 Albuquerque community eventsand safety fairs, representing 113volunteers and 8,056 contributedhours. Using a conservativevolunteer hourly rate for donatedservices from published sources of$21.76, their effort represents morethan $175,000 dollars in volunteerservices.OEM staff created a draft of anupdated emergency managementplan. The new planning documentsets forth appropriate actions to betaken by City agencies in responseto the potential or imminent threatof any disaster event. The planfacilitates the coordination forthe delivery of city resources andservices necessary to deal with theconsequences of a disaster.For the second year in a row,the OEM received top technicalassistance review scores from theCenter for Disease Control for theAlbuquerque Cities ReadinessInitiative (CRI). The CRI is afederally-funded program designedto enhance preparedness inthe nation’s largest cities andmetropolitan statistical areas. CRI’spurpose is to develop plans torespond to a large-scale bioterroristevent by dispensing antibiotics to theentire population within 48 hours.
FIELD SERVICESBUREAUThe Field Services Bureau is headed by Deputy Chief Macario Page.The Field Services Bureau is comprised of six area commands, theBehavioral Sciences Division, Crime Prevention, the Chaplain Program,the Emergency Response Team, and Operations.25
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