Mutual Aid in North Carolina

North Carolina's Mutual Aid System is based on the premise that it makes sound economic and logistic sense to share some types of emergency response equipment and resources since no community can own and maintain all of the resources that might be needed to respond to any given event.

The obvious benefit of joining the Mutual Aid System is having access to all of the State's response capability without incurring the costs to purchase, maintain, and insure an inventory of underused resources. Participating in the system provides efficient and effective assistance among governments, as well as faster reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Participants

The Mutual Aid System is a voluntary agreement among North Carolina local governments to share resources during a disaster. All 100 counties, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and nearly three-fourths of the 650 municipalities have signed the mutual aid agreement.

History

The Mutual Aid System was developed following Hurricane Fran in 1996. At that time there was no uniform agreement among North Carolina's cities and counties so they could help one another during and after disasters. With no policies and procedures to address logistics, deployment, compensation and liability issues, intrastate cooperation was limited and inefficient.

Then Gov. Jim Hunt formed a task force to address long-term recovery needs from the storm. The group recommended developing a statewide mutual aid agreement. The League of Municipalities and the N.C. Association of County Commissioners developed the statewide mutual aid agreement and distributed it to county governments and municipalities. The N.C. Division of Emergency Management serves as the repository for the agreement.

Statewide Mutual Aid Agreement

To execute the Statewide-Mutual-Aid-Agreement, please visit the DocuSign Statewide Mutual Aid Agreement link to initiate the process. You will need to provide the name and email address for the local signers to the document and they will receive an email inviting them to sign this document. Please add the following contact information to the DocuSign form for routing the NC Statewide Mutual Aid Agreement: 

  1. Emergency Management Coordinator or person who will be completing details on points of contact for the jurisdiction, 
  2. Local chief executive officer with the authority to sign for the jurisdiction and will be signing this agreement, and 
  3. Witness to the board action authorizing the Chief Executive to enter into the agreement.

If a local entity is unable to sign electronically, they will need to select "other options" on the top right and select "print and sign" when the agreement routes to them for signature. This will allow the signer to print the document, physically sign the document, and then either upload or fax the signed agreement to finish routing in the system.  

Contact

If you have questions or need additional assistance, please work with your local NCEM Area Coordinator, or contact the NCEM Mutual Aid Coordinator at 919-621-4734 or ncmutualaid@ncdps.gov

 

 

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