Meet the team:
The Aroostook County Emergency Management Agency (AKEMA) office staff consists of a Director, Deputy Director, Finance & Planning Associate and Community Outreach Planner.
AKEMA Director: Darren Woods, darren@aroostookema.com
AKEMA Deputy Director: Derrick Ouellette, derrick@aroostookema.com
AKEMA Finance & Planning Associate: Kim Champagne, Kim@aroostookema.com
AKEMA Community Outreach Planner: Brian Goff, brian@aroostookema.com
Location:
158 Sweden Street, Caribou, ME 04736
We are located in the Central Aroostook Region in Caribou, next to the Courthouse. This location was chosen strategically in order to best serve the entire county from one central location.
What is Emergency Management?: Emergency Management is a community wide effort to incorporate all available resources to mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from all emergencies and disasters.
Emergency Management Agency (EMA) was restructured by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to cover the duties of planning for, responding to and recovering from all types of emergencies and disasters. A County-wide plan was written outlining alerting and warning procedures, direction and control emergency services, evacuation, shelter and resource management, radiological protection, and hazard mitigation for natural and man-made disasters including hazardous materials.
While state and federal emergency response organizations exist, disasters impact local citizens and response is primarily performed by local organizations.
Aroostook County Emergency Operations Center (EOC): The EOC is a central point of coordination for all emergency and disaster operations in the County, including designation as the seat of government during large-scale emergencies. From there, staff members can quickly respond to support local emergency and disaster response. Assistance is coordinated through an integrated system of managing emergencies and involves local governments, state agencies and volunteer emergency service organizations.
Variety of Other Services Offered: While the primary function of the EMA is to assist communities in managing resources and planning we also offer a variety of other services. The EMA coordinates training to communities for such things as hazardous materials, weapons of mass destruction, and disaster preparedness. We assist local communities with their local EMA offices and help them with resources from training materials to shelters. We help communities with writing emergency plans and grants, whether it be for the town itself or it’s hospital or schools.
Aroostook County is subject to over 16 different situations involving response or coordination by the Aroostook Emergency Management Agency. Major classifications of these activities include: Drought, Flood, Severe Winter Storm, Severe Summer Storm/Tornado, Wildfire, Power Failure, Hazardous Materials Incident, Hazardous Materials Fixed Facility, Transportation Accident, Earthquake, Dam Failure, Radiological Incident, Epidemics, Explosions, Terrorism, Search and Rescue.
