Emergency Management preparing for our safety
By Michael Thomas
You have a good friend here in Gratiot County, and you probably don’t even know his name. John Aten is Gratiot County’s Emergency Management Coordinator. It’s his job to worry about the things that we don’t even think about every day. From natural disasters and chemical spills to riots and terrorist threats, it’s John that works to coordinate getting the assistance we need.
Emergency response management existed in some fashion as Civil Defense for years in Gratiot County. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the position became more formalized so a local person would be available in the event of a national, state, or local emergency. John has a counterpart in nearly every county in Michigan, with some counties in the north sharing a coordinator. Their main purpose is to mobilize whatever resources are available, be it local, state, or federal, to deal with an arisen crisis. They also make damage assessments to determine state or federal reimbursement, like in the case of a damaging thunderstorm or tornado. But individually, each coordinator fights for his share of funding from the state and federal government in order to meet the demands required of them.