Southeast Nebraska IMAT first in state to earn national recognition for emergency management excellence

A team that has worked to make responses to all kinds of crises in Southeast Nebraska more efficient and effective has received some national recognition for their efforts.

Composed of 12 total emergency managers in 14 counties from across this part of the state [Cass, Fillmore, Gage, Jefferson, Johnson, Lancaster, Nemaha, Otoe, Pawnee, Richardson, Saline, Seward, Thayer and York], the Southeast Nebraska Incident Management Assistance Team, or SEN-IMAT, is called upon whenever an incident gets too large for a local agency like a fire or police department to handle.

“It's basically a 911 center on steroids, is the way I like to put it,” said John McKee, who heads the emergency management efforts in both Jefferson and Saline counties. “We come in to support the locals on an incident that's too big for them to handle. From the getting resources in, to finance, logistics, feeding everybody and that. We're surveying the incident, seeing what we need, what's needed, and what's there. And we're planning for that next day's activities – usually an operational period is a 12-hour period. So we're sitting here looking at what's happening tomorrow, what we need to have tomorrow by what we're seeing today.”

The IMAT team works to fill roles in the local response group during a crisis response, and sets guidelines to make future responses more efficient and effective.

“The incident management team will basically come in and assist that local incident commander - the fire chief, the police chief, the EMS captain, the incident response commander for that incident. They'll flesh out and fill all of those command and general staff roles within their ICS structure or their command staff,” Thayer County emergency manager Colt Farringer said. “Normally a fire chief is responsible for talking to the media, talking to the elected officials, all the stuff on a day-to-day incident. When this incident becomes large enough to where they can't handle all of those positions, they can request those folks, this team to come in and fill those other roles within their structure.”

Members of the SEN-IMAT crew were presented with the Incident Management Team Special Recognition Award by the Incident Management Teams Association (IMTA) in Tacoma, Washington last week. That’s an award that has often previously been given to teams in much bigger, more populated areas such as Pennsylvania and New York, but this year was Nebraska’s turn. They're the first such team in the state to earn national recognition for their work, which stretches back over the last 15 years - largely because they're the first such team in the state to exist.

“We saw a need and we filled it without being asked to fill that need. And I think that it goes back to recognizing a problem - and that to me is emergency management,” Farringer said. “We try to find the worst in everything. But in doing that, this is probably one of the greatest things I've ever got to be a part of. Actually getting to where we're at right now has been awesome. I love it. It is a great honor and and I appreciate everybody who's came before me to get to this point.”

The emergency managers cited the massive Rock Creek and Lake Waconda fires that sprung up in Jefferson and Cass Counties within the same week in 2023 as proof that a team like this was needed - and proof that departments working together across counties can help solve major problems, especially when it comes to coordinating state and federal resources.

“With the support of the state kind of dwindling a little bit, their numbers not having enough people to cover all the fires or cover all the incidents, we’ve early on seen a need that, hey, we need to try to take care of ourselves,” McKee said. “Someday the state's not going to be there to help us for a while, so we're going to have to be on our own. We'd seen that from other fires and other things that had happened in the state because they were getting spread out and they've had just as much turnover as anybody else has at the state level.”

“The intent of the team really is you're either handing it up or you're handing it back,” Farringer said. “The incident's either progressing upwards and getting worse to where we're going to have to bring in actual state assets and maybe possibly federal assets, or we're maintaining it and we're going to turn it back over back to the local so local can finish it up and take care of it. We're kind of that stop gap before you get to the state level.”

And this recognition is proof positive for a group of people who work for the counties in service to the citizens who live there that the role of emergency manager, and a team like this, is essential for the wellbeing of the local citizens and also the county’s bottom line. Getting buy-in has been the hardest part, the EMs said, but this success – plus the award – is a sign that the SEN-IMAT has become trailblazers for this type of organizational structure and success in Nebraska and beyond.

“This group has done good things. I see them going far. It's just a matter of if we can get the buy-in at the local level to continue to operate and continue to do what we're doing, and get that buy-in at the state level to continue and the federal level to continue these things,” Farringer said. “Because that’s the thing, this is a great resource for the locals to have, but it can all go away if certain things change. And those things can be things outside of the local capabilities’ hands. And that's something that you don't want to see happen.”