County is without an emergency manager
By Terry Murry on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
UMATILLA COUNTY – The Umatilla County Board of Commissioners is working to hire an emergency manager after Tom Roberts’ resignation last month. Meanwhile, what happens if an emergency occurs while there is no manager?
“I’m sure it would be thrown back on the sheriff’s office and our command staff there,” Sheriff Terry Rowan said. “Commissioner (Dan) Dorran is the acting emergency manager, so he’ll be a component associated to it.”
Rowan said that fire officials have bought into the need for training in incident command structure, which is invoked during emergencies, and law enforcement agencies are buying in now as well. What he hopes is that other departments within the county also learn about incident command in the event of an emergency.
“For instance, there’s always the financial piece of responding to an emergency,” he said. “Who better suited to fulfill that role than our CFO or someone from his office to be a part of that incident management team?”
Rowan said the roads department would also be a welcome addition to an incident command team.
