“Traumatic Incident Response” and “Hazard Mitigation” aren’t topics for everyone. But this week, members of West Virginia Emergency Management Council soaked it all up at Bridgeport Conference Center.

WV EMC 2017 was held Tuesday through Thursday morning, with nearly 100 emergency management directors, deputy directors and other emergency management personnel in attendance. The conference was organized by Bridgeport Emergency Services Director Laura Pysz, who was also the recipient of the John Tagg Memorial Emergency Manger of the Year Award.

 

“It’s very humbling that my peers think I’m doing that great of a job,” she said. “Of all 55 counties and three jurisdictions, they picked me for this and that’s heartwarming. It really is.”

 

The award is named for Certified Emergency Manger/Emergency Medical Technologist/Paramedic John Tagg, who served as director of the Wheeling-Ohio Emergency Management Agency from 1994 until his 2010 death, making valuable contributions to the state’s emergency management plan, specifically dealing with the care of special needs populations in disasters and the care of animals during disasters.

 

Being named a recipient is quite an honor, said Theresa White, Region V Liaison for the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

 

“(The award) is based on extreme influence and impact – usually within the past year, but in this case about a year and half,” White said. “Laura received this award for all the work she does for the city of Bridgeport; organizing different classes and trainings going above and beyond what is required of her job, but mostly for her extreme work and impact relating to the flooding in Greenbrier County last year and continuing through until this year with recovery. Then, there’s this conference that she helped to develop and bring to Bridgeport and all the work she put into that.”

 

Throughout the first several months of 2017, several nominations were made, said White, who serves on the nominating committee.

“We gathered those nominations and weighed them – not against each other – but the most impact they have overall in the state,” she said. “Laura was hands down the winner.”

 

In her position as Bridgeport Emergency Services Director, Pysz is responsible for keeping the community – people and property – safe and making plans to protect in the case of a natural or man-made disaster.

 

“A lot of things fall under those responsibilities; things which come up daily,” said Pysz, who works closely with Bridgeport Police and Fire departments. “You just have to roll with the punches and od the best you can.”

 

Pysz has been involved in a number of recent endeavors – outside Bridgeport.

 

“In September, we had the plane crash. We knew a plane was down in one of three counties. We assisted with that, taking our mobile command unit, and ended up in Wetzel County, which was where our position was,” she said. “Not even two weeks later, we had the manhunt in West Milford so we spent that Sunday there. Just last week, we had a full-scale Highland Hospital exercise and the next day, one at (North Central West Virginia) Airport. So not only do I have to plan, we have to do exercises to ensure what we can improve upon – what went well and what went bad – juggling how we all work together.”

 

This is the first year the annual conference of the West Virginia Emergency Management Council has been held in Bridgeport. Pysz offered to head up a conference committee and bring the event to the area.

 

“We brought in a great speaker - Ken Middleton (PhD., Chief, Employee Resilience Unit/Peer Support Clinical Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) – who after last year’s flooding assisted a lot of emergency managers in one way or another. He has talked about stress and how it affects you and how to help victims affected by disaster. He’s been an amazing speaker this week,” she said. “We also had BERP (Bovine Emergency Response Plan) training relating to pigs and cattle. We have an interstate that runs through here and if something would ever happen, we would have to have a plan in action.”

 

Roy McCallister of the West Virginia Department of Agriculture conducted the BERP session. The conference has also featured Bryan Schuerman of WBOY, who spoke about meteorologists and emergency management relationships; J.D. Whitese, who spoke about hazard mitigation and David Hoge, Mike McMillen and Matt Blackwood who assisted with grant development and grant writing.

 

At Wednesday evening’s dinner and awards presentation, Pysz also received an award for organizing the conference. White said Pysz’s family was let in on that and invited to the awards banquet, but they did not know about the emergency manager of the year award.

White, who said she did some secret maneuvering, had the honor of reading the nomination letter.

 

A variety of other awards were presented, including Emergency Management Institute certifications and emergency manger level accreditations.

 

The conference wrapped up at noon Thursday with a presentation by Fred McMullen of the National Weather Service. 

 

Editor's Note: Pictured above are Laura Pysz, Ken Middleton and Theresa White.