Emergency Management Assistance Compact

EMAC is administered by the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA), which provides the day-to-day support and technical backbone for EMAC education and operations at its headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky. The main contact for agencies, organizations, and the private sector to learn more about EMAC is the state emergency management agencies. When responding to a disaster, EMAC works as follows. Requesting assistance To activate EMAC, the governor of the affected state or territory must formally declare a state of emergency. The next steps are the responsibility of the state emergency management director: listing the resources needed, including personnel and equipment; contacting EMAC; and contacting other states in reference to specific identified resources. An EMAC Advance Team (A-Team) will typically be deployed to help with needs assessment and preparation of the request. The requisition will then be broadcast to other states. At all times, affected states retain the option of seeking resource support from other states, the federal government, or both, as determined by the size of the disaster event. The emergency management director in the assisting state also has obligations to provide a timely response communicating the availability of resources. Providing assistance Assisting states that commit to an agreement then mobilize and deploy the agreed-upon resources (personnel or equipment) to the affected state. Some examples of typical resources provided are mobile command vehicles, public assistance teams, and temporary shelters. Other specialized resources may only be available from a few states, such as cargo aircraft, donations management teams, and technical rescue teams. Once the mission is completed, the resources are demobilized and redeployed to their home states. Reimbursement Deployed personnel provide receipts and records to their home state to develop a reimbursement package, which is then sent to the affected state, which then reimburses the assisting state. ==History==

Law Before EMAC, disaster response cooperation among states was governed by the Interstate Civil Defense and Disaster Compact, which 22 states and the District of Columbia joined after passage of the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950. Seventeen states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico ratified the agreement in 1993. In 1996, the 104th U.S. Congress passed Public Law 104 - 321, the Joint resolution granting the consent of Congress to the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, as required by the Compact Clause of the U.S. Constitution for some compacts between states. To become a member of EMAC, each state or territory legislature must have passed legislation which was signed into law, adopting the standard language. Since at least 2003, all U.S. states, the District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam are members of EMAC. and Hawaii in 2006. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands joined in 2019. American Samoa is eligible to join but is not a member as of 2026. Application In 1995, EMAC was activated to respond to damage from Hurricane Opal in Florida, in one of the first major tests of the compact. A review of after-action reports concluded that, while EMAC played a significant and effective role in response to these hurricanes, Mississippi was more effective than Louisiana in making use of EMAC. In response, 14 other states sent National Guard and other personnel to participate in Operation Lone Star. ==Benefits==

EMAC was developed to eliminate legal and administrative obstacles to interstate mutual aid such as licensing, permits, liability, and reimbursement. The number of states with intrastate mutual aid legislation increased from 10 in 2004 to 44 in 2020. The number of states with policies addressing private sector participation increased from 6 in 2014 to 18 in 2020. • Integrating state resources and mutual aid principles into national preparedness as reflected in the National Response Framework. == Limitations ==

EMAC applies only during the time period that a disaster is declared in the state requesting assistance. Also, EMAC does not resolve questions that arise when different states have different standards for governmental immunity. ==References==