Functions
The Department of Emergency Management (OEM) is the lead agency on all matters related to responding to and mitigation threats caused by natural disasters. To perform this function, the Department works closely with the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, the Oklahoma State Department of Health, the Oklahoma National Guard, and the Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security. During times when the Governor of Oklahoma declares a state of emergency due to natural disasters, all of these agencies report to and receive orders from the Governor through OEM.
These relationship only applies however when the state of emergency is from a disaster. During non-disaster time, the Department of Public Safety, which is responsible for general law enforcement of the State through the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, is the Governor's chief public safety agent. OEM reports to the Office of Homeland Security, during emergencies or otherwise, on all matters related to homeland security or an act of terrorism. The State Health Department is the lead agency on disasters caused by the spread of infectious diseases or bioterrorism.
The National Guard, under the direction of the Adjutant General of Oklahoma, becomes the lead agency on any matter (emergency management related or otherwise) whenever the Governor so directs or when the Governor declares martial law.
Read more about this topic: Oklahoma Department Of Emergency Management
Famous quotes containing the word functions:
“Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The English masses are lovable: they are kind, decent, tolerant, practical and not stupid. The tragedy is that there are too many of them, and that they are aimless, having outgrown the servile functions for which they were encouraged to multiply. One day these huge crowds will have to seize power because there will be nothing else for them to do, and yet they neither demand power nor are ready to make use of it; they will learn only to be bored in a new way.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children’s lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents’ failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)