The history of Clay County Emergency Management actually began in the 1940’s and was known then as Civil Defense. It was created in the early days of World War II, on May 20th 1940 President Roosevelt created the “Office of Civilian Defense” Roosevelt considered the United States to be in “.. a state of unlimited emergency” and recommended that communities create plans to deal with the potential dangers that existed. That threat became reality on December 7, 1941 when Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The end of World War II would not bring an end to the Civil Defense department as the U.S. was then involved in a Cold War. This period of Civil Defense brought “backyard” shelters and “duck and cover” drills in our schools.

In 1979 President Carter created the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known simply as FEMA. This would shift the arena of work to preparation and mitigation for natural disasters such as tornados and flooding. However, the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, would bring Emergency Management full turn again to and begin preparing for a new danger, terrorist actions such as—“dirty bombs”, biological agents and even our own airplanes.