The Nashville Office of Emergency Management is the City/County emergency management agency. We are the primary agency for disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery efforts. We coordinate resources and incidents and assist other departments in day to day events, and during emergency or disaster time. In short, Nashville OEM is similar to FEMA, but a local agency, which is extremely beneficial to the community since all disasters happen locally.
OEM Roles and Responsibilities
OEM performs many roles on a daily basis. You can explore our website to find an abundance of information, but we have summarized a few examples here of what we do:
OEM is responsible for the county's Emergency Operations Center, commonly called the EOC or War Room. This is the multi-agency coordination point for major emergencies and disasters, and includes emergency service coordinators and others who provide immediate support and coordination for a large incident. Emergency Operations Center (EOC) page
We have a 24/7 dispatch that works closely with the county 9-1-1 department and is co-located. OEM operations officers are in charge of monitoring incidents, processing calls and dispatching various department crews as needed to any variety of incidents around the city. OEM has field response personnel and volunteers that assist on the scene of an incident, and serve as liaisons for emergency personnel and others. Our field response personnel also assist and are on the scene of many different special events in the county. OEM Dispatch page, Emergency Support Unit (ESU)
OEM has a large group of personnel known as the Emergency Management Council/Emergency Service Coordinators. This group is the primary planning and responding group for major incidents and EOC activations. They get together for quarterly meetings at the least, but are always in communication with each other. Emergency Management Council page
OEM personnel continuously monitor for severe weather, terrorism alerts and other developing situations. OEM is Metro's primary warning and activation point for the outdoor warning sirens when a tornado warning is issued by the NWS for Davidson County. OEM is also the first local authority in TN to be able to activate the Emergency Alerting System (EAS) from its own dispatch center. This could be beneficial to the community during needed evacuations or similar situations. Tornado Warning Sirens page
OEM applies for and coordinates numerous federal grants for various agencies. Our grant personnel are responsible for various aspects of working with grants, including but not limited to applying, reporting, equipment acquisition and inventory.
Emergency planning is a large part of emergency management. Our planner is responsible for coordinating, creating, reviewing, revising and distributing many different emergency plans. This includes but is not limited to the city's Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, the Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan and many more. Once these plans are completed, OEM coordinates training on and exercising of the plans with various stakeholders. OEM's Planning page
As part of the emergency preparedness cycle with planning is always training and exercising. OEM has access to a variety of training opportunities either locally or in other locations for emergency personnel. Personnel can also come and assist, observe, stand by during your exercises/drills. If you need an OEM representative present in exercise planning meetings or during an exercise, please contact our exercise coordinator as far in advance as possible. Exercises page
Public education is an important duty of OEM. We go out to the community for many many different types of events to educate the public on emergency preparedness and most anything related. Since public education is such an important thing we do, we are quite flexible when it comes to educating the public. We can set up educational tables, do presentations, talk with children, or do a class for your group. We have CERT training classes, or basic preparedness classes ready to go for you. We may even be able to bring some emergency equipment to your event to let the community see who we are. Request an OEM Speaker, Disaster Preparedness information page, Community Emergency Response Team Training.