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Honolulu Department of Emergency Management (DEM) - is a department under the executive branch of the City and County of Honolulu. The department was established in 2007 by Mayor Mufi Hannemann and it replaced the previous Oahu Civil Defense Agency.

It is responsible for connecting and organizing the different agencies during an emergency event in the city and county of Honolulu. They are also responsible for relaying the information from a disaster event to the press and the mayor. The department oversees training and practice emergencies in partnership with FEMA and the federal Department of Homeland Security.

The emergency events that the department responds to are: enemy attacks, natural disasters, hazardous material incidents, marine and terrestrial oil spills.

The Department of Emergency Management is the connection between the city and county of Oahu to the states civil defence agency and also FEMA. This department is not to be confused with Hawaii’s defense agency, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

History
The Department of Emergency Management was originally the Oahu Civil Defense Agency.

The previous agency had many of the same responsibilities as the new department, the difference now is that it is a cabinet-level entity. The new department was formed in 2007 by Mayor Mufi Hannemann following the approval of resolution 07-037 by the Honolulu City Council.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency held a full-scale HAZMAT field exercise called “Operation Kalaeloa.” This was held to test Honolulu’s Hazardous Materials Response Plan and it was deemed a successful test. The exercise included 2000 participants which included 13 out of 18 hospitals in Oahu.

The CERT program and training has started during the OCDA era of the agency. In partnership with FEMA, training has been conducted since the year 1997.

CERT
Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) - Under the Department of Emergency Management, citizens can be trained in disaster preparation and prevention in their own local communities.

DEM holds training that include 16 classroom hours and a 4 hour field exercise.

Citizens who finish this training can either join an existing CERT group, start a new CERT group, or just use the knowledge to further protect their families.

There are currently 15 Community Preparedness Groups located on the island of Oahu. The following communities have CERT teams that have completed the CERT training: North Shore, Kahuku, Laie, Hauula, Kaaawa, Kahaluu, Mililani, Kaneohe, Kailua, Waimanalo, Hawaii Kai, Aina Haina, Manoa, Ewa Beach, Waianae Coast

Volunteering
The Department of Emergency Management has two other volunteer programs. These two programs are the Emergency Management Reserve Corps and the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service.

Emergency Management Reserve Corps consist of a coordinator, deputy coordinator, assistant coordinator and functional staff all assigned to a district on the island of Oahu. They are responsible for traffic control, crowd control, warning and evacuation of at-risk populations, assisting with beach park closures due to high surf, providing security services for large scale operations, observing and reporting hazardous weather conditions, and damage assessment.

Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service consists of a coordinator, deputy coordinator, and communications staff. They are responsible for receiving and sharing information in the EOC, transmitting out vital information from the EOC to other ham operators, collecting and transmitting condition in the area they are in, providing communications between shelters and the EOC and Red Cross Headquarters, providing backbone communications for other agencies when communications fail, observing and reporting hazardous weather conditions