The Butler County Emergency Management Agency (BCEMA) protects Butler County from disasters through emergency planning, partnerships, and coordination.

BCEMA activities focus on the four primary phases of emergency management:

Prevention—Actions taken to avoid an incident or to intervene to stop an incident from occurring in the effort to protect lives and property.

Preparedness—Activities such as planning, training, public education, and outreach to create awareness of potential dangers and increase readiness in our community.

Response—Use of available resources to meet the needs of the community when disaster strikes. Depending on the severity of the disaster, this can include local, county, State and Federal resources, to include fire and EMS services, public works, and law enforcement.

Recovery—The long-range support of restoring the community to pre-disaster conditions. This phase includes damage assessments to public and private property, as well as social services to assist citizens. The length of the recovery phase depends on the magnitude of the disaster.

Provides emergency preparation for elderly citizens.

Long-term care ombudsmen are advocates for residents of nursing homes, board and care homes and assisted living facilities. Ombudsmen provide information about how to find a facility and what to do to get quality care. They are trained to resolve problems. If you want, the ombudsman can assist you with complaints. However, unless you give the ombudsman permission to share your concerns, these matters are kept confidential. Under the federal Older Americans Act, every state is required to have an Ombudsman Program that addresses complaints and advocates for improvements in the long-term care system.

The ombudsman program is administered by the Administration on Aging (AoA).  The network has 7,331 volunteers certified to handle complaints and 1,320 paid staff. Most state ombudsman programs are housed in their State Unit on Aging.  Nationally, in 2016 the ombudsman program investigated over 199,493 complaints on behalf of 125,642 individuals and provided information on long-term care to another 378,582 people.

Visit the AoA website for more information.

Whether through individual contact with residents or systemic advocacy, ombudsmen make a difference in the lives of residents in long-term care facilities everyday.

To coordinate activities to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters.

The department is the result of a consolidation of the former Communications Center, Emergency Management Agency, and HazMat/L.E.P.C. All three former departments have now become divisions under one Department. The primary mission of the Department is to provide emergency assistance to citizens and visitors during adverse circumstances that threaten life and property.