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2023 has come to a close and the Office of Emergency Management is ready to ring in the new year! We have been so fortunate to be able to serve the community and support personal preparedness over this past year and are looking forward to what 2024 will bring us. Read ahead to see what plans are in place for our department this year.
Click the following links to jump to the different topics of the newsletter:
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Community Emergency Response Training will be happening again this year! The past few years of classes have been taught at Fire Station 26. Station 26 will be having an improvement project completed this year, which means this year’s CERT classes will be trying out some new locations around Kirkland. The next class will be happening in at the end of April/beginning of May, with the locations to be determined. The registration link for the upcoming CERT class can be viewed on our CERT website by clicking on the button below.
You also can click this link to sign up for the City’s weekly newsletter, This Week in Kirkland, to learn more information about future CERT offerings and the latest information on what is happening in the City of Kirkland!
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The Kirkland Emergency Communications Team (KECT) has welcomed several new members in the past year. In 2024, the team will look forward to partnering with local groups for joint drills, developing team member’s skills and knowledge base. To learn more information about KECT, or get involved with the team, check out www.kirklandwa.gov/KECT.
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The new year brings new opportunities for the Office of Emergency Management to collaborate with our already existing local partnerships, as well as build new partnerships. We have been working with Lake Washington School District to build stronger coordination with our schools. This includes joint meetings, scenario-based discussions, and response personnel engaging with students.
We also are working with cities around us to help plan, train, and respond in a coordinated manner. Check out this video to hear messages about how to find preparedness information from our neighboring cities: Bellevue, Bothell, Redmond, and Issaquah.
 We have been coordinating our amateur radio teams, supporting the facilitation and evaluating each other’s emergency exercises, collaborating on planning efforts, and working on cross training of our Emergency Management staff.
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The Office of Emergency Management is excited to grow our capabilities of our staff in 2024.
We first want to congratulate our very own Carly Pacekonis for earning her Associate Emergency Manager (AEM) certification in 2023 from the International Association of Emergency Managers. To earn your AEM, you must complete over 200 hours of training, submit an extensive credential package, and pass a certification exam. Carly joins others with this professional achievement whose goals are saving lives and protecting property and the environment during emergencies and disasters. The Office of Emergency Management is incredibly proud of Carly for completing this task!
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City staff will continue to participate in emergency preparedness activities. Some of these activities include teaching staff how to build their own personal preparedness go bags or providing preparedness education.
Having employees participate in preparedness training not only improves their personal preparedness and response skills at home, but it also will support the City during disasters or disruptions. The goal is to have everyone as prepared as they can be for a disaster so that when something big happens, you likely will be able to recover quicker.
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This year, we also plan to engage in shaping the future of emergency management by contributing to the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology initiatives. There also will be regional and FEMA leadership training programs that we will attend.
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