At a meeting of the Winston County Board of Supervisors, on Tuesday, February 19, Winston County Emergency Management Director, Buddy King, introduced the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) Executive Director, Gregory Michel, to the supervisors and other officials from the County and the City of Louisville.
King stated that every conversation with Michel begins with him asking, “How are you doing?” and that Michel truly is interested in the state of affairs.
He added, “I can’t name all of the projects that our community has gone through since we got struck by a tornado about five years ago, but it is tremendous. The community is resilient, and MEMA has endorsed that resiliency and been our advocate and helped us rebuild so many things that on that day of devastation we didn’t know we would ever get back.”
Michel introduced MEMA Staff Members Clayton French, Tracy Pharr and David Shaw, adding that these people will respond to emergencies, not to take over, but to support response and recovery efforts.
Michel added that Mississippi is one of the first states to take on the task of managing its own disasters, which should help to expedite the process as FEMA will have a smaller role and MEMA will have a greater role. Michel stated that he was very proud of this effort and the state has the team to accomplish it. He added that there is a lot of red tape when dealing with the Federal government, and MEMA’s objective is to get communities on the road to recovery as quickly as possible, and the state-led recovery effort will help in those areas. He added that positive changes are taking place at MEMA.
