                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

FINDINGS OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY (§ 44-146.14)

a. Because of the ever present possibility of the occurrence of disasters of
unprecedented size and destructiveness resulting from enemy attack, sabotage or
other hostile action, resource shortage, or from fire, flood, earthquake, or
other natural causes, and in order to insure that preparations of the
Commonwealth and its political subdivisions will be adequate to deal with such
emergencies, and generally to provide for the common defense and to protect the
public peace, health, and safety, and to preserve the lives and property and
economic well-being of the people of the Commonwealth, it is hereby found and
declared to be necessary and to be the purpose of this chapter:

   1. To create a State Department of Emergency Management, and to authorize the
   creation of local organizations for emergency management in the political
   subdivisions of the Commonwealth;

   2. To confer upon the Governor and upon the executive heads or governing
   bodies of the political subdivisions of the Commonwealth emergency powers
   provided herein; and

   3. To provide for rendering of mutual aid among the political subdivisions of
   the Commonwealth and with other states and to cooperate with the federal
   government with respect to the carrying out of emergency service functions.

b. It is further declared to be the purpose of this chapter and the policy of
the Commonwealth that all emergency service functions of the Commonwealth be
coordinated to the maximum extent possible with the comparable functions of the
federal government, other states, and private agencies of every type, and that
the Governor shall be empowered to provide for enforcement by the Commonwealth
of national emergency services programs, to the end that the most effective
preparation and use may be made of the nation&#8217;s resources and facilities
for dealing with any disaster that may occur.

HISTORY: 1973, c. 260; 1974, c. 4; 1975, c. 11; 2000, c. 309.