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Finance Division • Human Resources • Local Support Services Division • Office of Training and Exercises • Operations Division • Preparedness Division • Public Affairs Office • Recovery and Mitigation Division • Technological Hazards Division
The Local Support Services Division was established in April 2003 as part of a Secure Virginia Panel initiative to improve the Commonwealth’s preparedness, response and recovery capabilities for natural disasters and emergencies.
LSS expands upon the work of the agency's former Field Services activity, which employed three regional coordinators to provide hands on emergency management support/resources to local jurisdictions. Almost identical to the Virginia State Police Divisions, the seven designated Emergency Management (EM) regions contain an average of 16 - 20 jurisdictions.
A dedicated, professional regional coordinator is assigned to each EM region to provide ongoing support in the design, development, analysis and implementation of comprehensive all hazards emergency management programs at the local and regional levels.
The LSS Division is the eyes and ears of VDEM senior staff, offering an unparalleled opportunity to forge strong relationships that will enhance our ability to effectively partner with Virginia localities in times of crisis. During normal operations, these field coordinators will maintain a continuing dialogue between localities and VDEM central office staff to ensure that state and federal programs support and enhance development of comprehensive local emergency management capabilities. In addition, they coordinate emergency preparedness and response activities at the regional level with state agencies. They will also help to synchronize target and threat assessments, state planning, federal funding and incident management activities between state agencies and localities.
When major emergencies or disasters affect communities, the regional coordinators provide critical coordination of information and resources to those communities in order to alleviate problems and to promote a return to normalcy. Their vehicles are equipped with communications equipment that allows them to quickly provide real-time information from the field to the Virginia Emergency Operations Center. They are able to photograph impacts from emergencies with GPS cameras and e-mail the photos from their vehicle to the VEOC, where they can be added to a layer in GIS, giving the VEOC a quick, accurate assessment of the impact.