New County Department Readies for the Season’s Storms

Click on image to watch short news report about Barnstable County’s new department.

18 September 2026 – BARNSTABLE, MA – A new county department builds on decades of work to create a focal point for Cape Cod regional emergency planning. The new Department of Emergency Management acts as a point of regional coordination for planning and response to hurricanes, blizzards, and other disasters.

What is the new county department?

This year – As Cape Cod moves into nor’easter, blizzard, and winter storm season – it ha a new structure that sharpens the region’s ability to respond to disasters.

Andrew Platt, the county’s new Director of Emergency Management, is leading a newly minted department of Emergency Management. He said the process began with an ordinance in July.

“It is now a full department that is resourced and reports directly the county administration,” he said.

Where did the new department come from?

Developing regional response capacity has been a long-term effort, starting decades ago ago with the Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee (BCREPC) a coalition that brought together all the towns and their fire, police, and public works, as well as EMS, the red cross and other agencies from across Cape Cod.

Step by step this group began building processes to share information, planning, and response needs.  Within the new framework, this committee continues to play a key role,  helping inform and shape the work of new department.

However, Platt says that the move to a dedicated county department helps bring those years of work into structural focus.

“It really signifies to our communities and our towns that yes, the county does emergency management, it is supporting emergency management in the region, and we are committed to providing that support,” he said.

Why does a regional layer work for Cape Cod?

While all disasters are local, said Platt, their impact can be anything but.

“Disasters don’t care about our municipal boundaries,” he explained.

The new department augments the work of the towns, enabling coordination and collaboration, including response activities that maybe too big for one town, such as shelters.

What is important in emergency planning?

We tend to think about floods, battering winds, and downed power lines … only when they are upon us, but emergency planning takes year round effort.

Platt says that emergency planning starts in the home and with having a personal plan. He emphasized the importance of knowing you neighbors because they are the first people you might respond or that you might respond to.

Response is a bit like a set of nested dolls, where each levels leads into the next: from home, to town, to county, to state, and eventually in large disaster, the federal government

Why do we need emergency planning?

No one controls the weather, but we can control our ability to respond and recover from it — and that’s exactly the point of the new department.

“The reality we are in a very vulnerable place, we are essentially a sandbar out in the Atlantic ocean, we have two bridges that are cutting us off,” said Platt said.

“The more we can prepare locally to get ourselves ready … I think this puts us in the position to be able to do this a little bit better.”

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