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:
“Let us stop being afraid. Of our own thoughts, our own minds. Of madness, our own or others’. Stop being afraid of the mind itself, its astonishing functions and fandangos, its complications and simplifications, the wonderful operation of its machinery—more wonderful because it is not machinery at all or predictable.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“When Western people train the mind, the focus is generally on the left hemisphere of the cortex, which is the portion of the brain that is concerned with words and numbers. We enhance the logical, bounded, linear functions of the mind. In the East, exercises of this sort are for the purpose of getting in tune with the unconscious—to get rid of boundaries, not to create them.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)