PHILADELPHIA – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Philadelphia District earned full accreditation from the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP). The distinction is the result of a comprehensive evaluation of District emergency management programs and activities including planning; resource management; training; exercises, evaluations, and corrective actions; and communications and warning.
“We’re proud of the hard work our team put into the accreditation process,” said Jim Monsu, chief of Emergency Management. “This was a total District effort – it validates our program and helped us identify areas for improvement.”
The EMAP accreditation is voluntary and based on emergency management and disaster preparedness national standards. To achieve accreditation, the District Emergency Management office documented standard operating procedures and participated in a peer-review assessment with assessors from other federal and state agencies and academia. Through the documentation and peer review assessment, District staff demonstrated compliance with 104 emergency management elements contained within 64 EMAP standards.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a part of the federal government’s unified national response to disasters and emergencies and deploys people every year in support of FEMA.
ABOUT EMAP
EMAP revolutionizes emergency management programs that coordinate preparedness and response activities for disasters based on industry standards. EMAP recognizes the ability of emergency management programs to bring together personnel, resources and communications from a variety of agencies and organizations in preparation for and in response to an emergency, in addition to obtaining the ability to measure those capabilities. The Emergency Management Standard is flexible in design so that programs of differing sizes, populations, risks and resources can use it as a blueprint for improvement and can attain compliance with the standard. The EMAP process evaluates emergency management programs on compliance with requirements in sixteen areas, including: planning; resource management; training; exercises, evaluations, and corrective actions; and communications and warning. This forms the foundation of the nation’s emergency preparedness system.
Release no. 15-003