HARRISBURG – The PA Emergency Management Agency or PEMA highlighted their ongoing work to build an effective emergency management system in PA to mitigate against, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters and emergencies. PEMA Director Randy Padfield said a comprehensive emergency management program requires a professionally trained workforce. Some training happens in a classroom, sometimes it’s on-line, and sometimes it’s hands-on learning. From 2023 – 2025, PEMA delivered nearly 150 courses totaling more than 2,700 hours of training for the state agency plus county and municipal emergency partners, and first responders. While training and exercising to primarily respond to disasters in PA, over 100 personnel and specialized response teams were deployed to other states to support operations after natural disasters through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact. Those deployments were staffed by workers from PEMA, PennDOT, State Police, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and the PA National Guard.
