Governor Bob McDonnell has proclaimed July 21 – 27, 2013, as Emergency Management Week, a nod to the profession’s 40th anniversary.
In July 1973 and largely as a result of the devastation of Hurricane Camille in 1969, the Virginia Emergency Services and Disaster Act established the Virginia Office of Emergency Services. The new agency’s purpose was to assist in protecting the commonwealth and its residents from the effects of both natural and human-caused disasters.
Emergency management in its infancy trained U.S. citizens about how to respond to an atomic bomb, drilling “Duck and Cover” into school children and adults alike. Since then, the field has evolved into a complete profession that includes extensive planning, preparing, responding to, recovering from and mitigating all types of emergencies and hazards.
Today, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management works with local, state and federal agencies and voluntary organizations to provide resources during emergencies. The agency’s mission is to protect the lives and property of Virginia’s citizens from emergencies and disasters by coordinating the state’s emergency preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery efforts.