08/13/2026
What Is Emergency Management?
When people think of emergencies, they often think of police officers, firefighters, or paramedics responding to an incident. However emergency management begins long before an incident happens and continues long after it’s over.
Emergency management has four phases within the cycle, preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation.
- Preparedness creates readiness before an incident occurs and involves making plans, training staff, stocking resources, educating the public, and holding exercises.
- Response means supporting our first responders and the community during incidents by providing resources, communications, logistics, lighting, and other assistance as needed.
- Recovery restores the community back to normal or safer conditions and includes clearing debris, and assisting residents and town partners.
- Mitigation means to reduces long-term risk and prevents hazards from turning into large-scale incidents through planning, hazard assessments, public education, and projects that make our community safer and more resilient.
Dartmouth EMA has provided service since the 1940s and will continue to do so for many more years to come.
Picture 1 depicts one of our cruisers during the February 2026 Storm.
Picture 2 depicts one of our light trucks providing lighting at a town event.
Picture 3 depicts an old Civil Defense cruiser in a parade, sometime in the 1970s.
