The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency has released its year-end numbers for the 2021 calendar year.

“It’s been a honor to serve our state as the executive director for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency this past year,” said Lt. Col. (Ret.) Stephen C. McCraney, who was appointed to the position by Gov. Tate Reeves in January 2021.

“Each year can deal us a different blow. We never know what Mother Nature will throw our way. MEMA is proud of the response work that we do for Mississippians. Our agency is more than just a ‘bad weather working’ agency. During blue skies days, we’re fully engaged in preparing for the next disaster and mitigating our state to become more resilient. Your State Emergency Operations Center is ready for what 2022 will bring us.”

Response

• Responded to 24 severe weather events

• Distributed

o 275,000 sandbags

o More than 700,000 bottles of water

o 140,000 bags of ice

o 2,000 ready-made meals

• 56 aerial damage assessments

• 37 missing person missions

• 2 HAZMAT/fire support missions

• Deployed 350 state and local personnel for EMAC missions in Louisiana (Hurricane Ida) and California (wildfires)

• Utilized 65 Disaster Reservists for emergency responses

• MEMA staff worked 9,500 hours in overtime

COVID

• Activated 647 days since March 13, 2020

• Built 60-day State PPE stockpile

• Delivered 21 million pieces of PPE

• Fulfilled 93 percent of medical staffing requests from 67 hospitals

Recovery

• $800,000 distributed to 11 counties to repair 145 homes ineligible for federal assistance

• Assisted more than 800 survivors via Hurricane Ida call center

• Worked 20 federally-declared disasters

• Distributed $86 million in disaster funds to county Public Assistance projects

• Closed 155 Public Assistance projects

• Approved 26 Mitigation projects, completed 21

• Paid out $3.2 million to sub-recipients for Mitigation projects

• Managing 112 open Mitigation projects

• Hired 40 new MEMA employees

Preparedness

• Taught 106 training classes to more than 1,800 attendees

• 340,000 participants for Great ShakeOut

• 195 participants in Grand Gulf Nuclear Ingestion Pathway Exercise