×

Emergency leader joins Martin Co.

FAIRMONT — Martin County has seen an eventful 2018 when it comes to weather, from an extended winter, to lingering summer rains to a fast-moving Sept. 20 storm that spawned a couple of tornadoes.

All that destruction puts a focus on emergency preparedness.

Martin County recently gained a new emergency management director, Abigail Nesbit. She has been working with Martin County for about a month. Sheriff Jeff Markquart recently introduced Nesbit to county commissioners.

“She has kind of taken us on in a baptism by fire with the last storm that we had and [has] been helping out quite a bit,” he told them.

Nesbit shared her background in emergency management, how she came to Martin County and what she is working on.

“I graduated from North Dakota State University with an emergency management degree, so I have some book experience, and I did my internship out in California at Stanford Hospital, working at their Office of Emergency Management,” she said. “Most recently, I worked at Anoka County for their emergency management department.”

Nesbit is working to complete paperwork for public assistance from the state for the September storm, as well as finishing some of her predecessor’s projects. These include an emergency management grant performance project, a hazardous materials emergency preparedness plan and a continuity of emergency operations plan.

“I’m also working to revise the county emergency operations plan, and I’ve also talked with the Fairmont police chief,” she noted. “Their plan is very old and he would like some help revising that. Then I’m going to go through the city’s [plan] and see if they’d like to have their own plan, or adopt the county’s plan and fit it to their needs.”

In a later interview, Nesbit said she is motivated to meet the demands of her new position.

“I’m just very excited to go out and work with the community, to help them be more prepared personally and at work,” she said. “I’m looking forward to doing exercises and training that the public is going to have knowledge of, along with attending various fairs and things where I can reach the public for community outreach and education.

“Then I’m looking forward to preparing the Sheriff’s Department and the [Fairmont] Police Department and other local departments in the county in working together in communication roles.”

Clarifying her role, Nesbit noted she is more of a resource than anything else.

“In no way am I ever going to tell fire or police what to do or how to do their job,” she said. “I’m purely a resource if they need me to call Red Cross or call some state contacts for reinforcements.”

Nesbit said that while coming on during the recent storm could have been a rocky start, she is more than pleased with the help she received from local departments.

“The cities and townships and the Sheriff’s Department, specifically the sheriff, has been very helpful,” she said. “They’ve been communicative and are giving me time to sort through all the paperwork.

“We’ve got the ball pretty well rolling,” she continued. “We’re wrapping up the public assistance for the flooding from the summer, and then we just started to get a move on for this tornado. We’ve got a state meeting coming up for all the cities and townships that were affected, so they’ll probably be getting their public assistance for the end of the year.”

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

COMMENTS

[vivafbcomment]

Starting at $4.65/week.

Subscribe Today