Ada County-City Emergency Management (ACCEM) is in charge of managing emergency resources and agency collaboration in the county, and has trained personnel ready to meet any likely, or unlikely, disaster. However, training is usually reserved for the most probable disasters in Ada County: fires, weather-related incidents, and hazardous material accidents or spills.
No matter what the event, disaster research specialists are already briefing ACCEM officials and their partners on how to prepare for the next emergency event.
Future Careers with Emergency Management in Ada County
The first step in obtaining emergency management jobs in Ada County is applying. Candidates should identify a career path with Ada County-City Emergency Management or one of its partner agencies and research a specific job’s minimum requirements. These often include relevant work experience, training, and an emergency management degree. Academic programs are offered at several public and private locations throughout Ada County, and include subjects such as:
- Political Science
- Public Health
- Urban Planning
- Non-Profit Business Administration
- Emergency/Disaster Preparedness
- Social Sciences
- Engineering
- Mental Health
ACCEM provides resources and emergency management training throughout Ada County in the areas of:
- Dam destruction
- Drought
- Floods
- Earthquakes
- Landslides
- Diseases
- Nuclear war
- Pests
- Fires
- Terrorism
- Utility outages
- Severe weather
- Volcanic eruptions
Recent ACCEM Actions in Ada County
Ada County was declared a flood disaster zone by the county commissioners in the first week of May 2012 in a move to make more resources available to Ada City-County Emergency Management (ACCEM) and other city and county officials. As residents know, the Boise River occasionally breaches its banks, and in this particular event emergency management officials working with ACCEM were also busy dealing with a growing sinkhole that had opened near the end of Joplin Road. Throughout the flooding and high water emergency, ACCEM organized evacuations, assessed damage, directed emergency medical services, and provided food and shelter to displaced persons. Part of having emergency management jobs in Ada County means being able to work well in a team environment, diagnose problems, determine creative solutions, and have a desire to help those in need at the mercy of nature’s forces.
By contrast, ACCEM also recently was involved in the management of an Eagle fire that destroyed three homes and a barn along with more than 2,500 acres before it was declared an Ada County disaster. Battling the blaze were about 200 firefighters who coordinated their actions with ACCEM. Mental health professionals counseled the victims of the fire who lost their homes while public information officers kept news organizations informed about the latest changes in the fire’s path. ACCEM and other private, public, and non-profit agencies offer emergency management certification in Ada County in areas such as:
- Interdisciplinary Homeland Security Studies
- Disaster Health
- Emergency Management and Public Health
- Fire Science