A White County native, Alan Wurst wears several hats. He’s an Emergency Medical Responder and has been since he was 17 years old. He’s 33 now and has added jobs including Funeral Assistant at Jordan Funeral Group, part-time auxiliary police officer for the Carmi PD, Chief Deputy Coroner, and took on the White County Emergency Manager Agency Director position about 7 months ago. Beyond that, somehow Wurst finds time to run a mowing business and jokes that he sleeps between 2am and 6am if he doesn’t get called out for any of the other gigs that keep him very busy.
Wurst, speaking to the Carmi Kiwanis Club Thursday, breaks the EMA position down into four categories: Prepare, Warn, Respond, and Recover.
Prepare: I’m always watching the news, the weather, keeping an eye on what the police are doing and what they’ve got coming. I’m notifying the public with my Facebook page of weather and whatever I think is necessary to be put
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out. That comes with the Warn and then Respond…if there is a weather event like we all just saw, I go out , assess, help motorists that are stuck…whatever the police need, whatever the fire department needs, I’m there. I’m kind of the umbrella to help keep everybody together and rolling good. And then Recover, that is to stay in contact with IEMA (Illinois Emergency Management Agency) through Marion and then they talk to Springfield if I need more assets or money or if we were to go into a state of emergency or something like that.
As part of the position, Wurst is well connected with the meteorological team at the National Weather Service in Paducah and can request detailed information and quick updates when situations arise. Hand in hand with that, Wurst in conjunction with the NWS is hosting a Storm Spotter class later this month that will be open to the public.
I’m actually putting on a Storm Spotter class February 21st, 5pm at the Lions Club. You have to register to attend. It’ll be put on by myself and the National Weather Service out of Paducah.
