                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

DEFINITIONS (§ 44-146.16)

As used in this chapter, unless the context requires a different meaning:
		&#8220;Communicable disease of public health threat&#8221; means an illness of
public health significance, as determined by the State Health Commissioner in
accordance with regulations of the Board of Health, caused by a specific or
suspected infectious agent that may be reasonably expected or is known to be
readily transmitted directly or indirectly from one individual to another and
has been found to create a risk of death or significant injury or impairment;
this definition shall not, however, be construed to include human
immunodeficiency viruses or tuberculosis, unless used as a bioterrorism weapon.
&#8220;Individual&#8221; shall include any companion animal. Further, whenever
&#8220;person or persons&#8221; is used in Article 3.02 (§ 32.1-48.05 et seq.)
of Chapter 2 of Title 32.1, it shall be deemed, when the context requires it, to
include any individual.
		&#8220;Cyber incident&#8221; means an event occurring on or conducted through
a computer network that actually or imminently jeopardizes the integrity,
confidentiality, or availability of computers, information or communications
systems or networks, physical or virtual infrastructure controlled by computers
or information systems, or information resident thereon. &#8220;Cyber
incident&#8221; includes a vulnerability in information systems, system security
procedures, internal controls, or implementations that could be exploited by a
threat source.
		&#8220;Disaster&#8221; means (i) any man-made disaster, including any
condition following an attack by any enemy or foreign nation upon the United
States resulting in substantial damage of property or injury to persons in the
United States including by use of bombs, missiles, shell fire, or nuclear,
radiological, chemical, or biological means or other weapons or by overt
paramilitary actions; terrorism, foreign and domestic; cyber incidents; and any
industrial, nuclear, or transportation accident, explosion, conflagration, power
failure, resources shortage, or other condition such as sabotage, oil spills,
and other injurious environmental contaminations that threaten or cause damage
to property, human suffering, hardship, or loss of life and (ii) any natural
disaster, including any hurricane, tornado, storm, flood, high water,
wind-driven water, tidal wave, earthquake, drought, fire, communicable disease
of public health threat, or other natural catastrophe resulting in damage,
hardship, suffering, or possible loss of life.
		&#8220;Discharge&#8221; means spillage, leakage, pumping, pouring, seepage,
emitting, dumping, emptying, injecting, escaping, leaching, fire, explosion, or
other releases.
		&#8220;Emergency&#8221; means any occurrence, or threat thereof, whether
natural or man-made, which results or may result in substantial injury or harm
to the population or substantial damage to or loss of property or natural
resources and may involve governmental action beyond that authorized or
contemplated by existing law because governmental inaction for the period
required to amend the law to meet the exigency would work immediate and
irrevocable harm upon the citizens or the environment of the Commonwealth or
some clearly defined portion or portions thereof.
		&#8220;Emergency services&#8221; means the preparation for and the carrying
out of functions, other than functions for which military forces are primarily
responsible, to prevent, minimize, and repair injury and damage resulting from
disasters, together with all other activities necessary or incidental to the
preparation for and carrying out of the foregoing functions. These functions
include, without limitation, firefighting services, police services, medical and
health services, rescue, engineering, warning services, communications,
radiological, chemical, and other special weapons defense, evacuation of persons
from stricken areas, emergency welfare services, emergency transportation,
emergency resource management, existing or properly assigned functions of plant
protection, temporary restoration of public utility services, and other
functions related to civilian protection. These functions also include the
administration of approved state and federal disaster recovery and assistance
programs.
		&#8220;Hazard mitigation&#8221; means any action taken to reduce or eliminate
the long-term risk to human life and property from natural hazards.
		&#8220;Hazardous substances&#8221; means all materials or substances that now
or hereafter are designated, defined, or characterized as hazardous by law or
regulation of the Commonwealth or regulation of the United States government.
		&#8220;Interjurisdictional agency for emergency management&#8221; is any
organization established between contiguous political subdivisions to facilitate
the cooperation and protection of the subdivisions in the work of disaster
prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery.
		&#8220;Local emergency&#8221; means the condition declared by the local
governing body when in its judgment the threat or actual occurrence of an
emergency or disaster is or threatens to be of sufficient severity and magnitude
to warrant coordinated local government action to prevent or alleviate the
damage, loss, hardship, or suffering threatened or caused thereby, provided,
however, that a local emergency arising wholly or substantially out of a
resource shortage may be declared only by the Governor, upon petition of the
local governing body, when he deems the threat or actual occurrence of such an
emergency or disaster to be of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant
coordinated local government action to prevent or alleviate the damage, loss,
hardship, or suffering threatened or caused thereby, and provided, however,
nothing in this chapter shall be construed as prohibiting a local governing body
from the prudent management of its water supply to prevent or manage a water
shortage.
		&#8220;Local emergency management organization&#8221; means an organization
created in accordance with the provisions of this chapter by local authority to
perform local emergency service functions.
		&#8220;Major disaster&#8221; means any natural catastrophe, including any:
hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami,
earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought, or
regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the United
States, which, in the determination of the President of the United States is, or
thereafter determined to be, of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant
major disaster assistance under the Stafford Act (P.L. 93-288 as amended) to
supplement the efforts and available resources of states, local governments, and
disaster relief organizations in alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or
suffering caused thereby and is so declared by him.
		&#8220;Political subdivision&#8221; means any city or county in the
Commonwealth and, for the purposes of this chapter, the Town of Chincoteague and
any town of more than 5,000 population that chooses to have an emergency
management program separate from that of the county in which such town is
located.
		&#8220;Resource shortage&#8221; means the absence, unavailability, or reduced
supply of any raw or processed natural resource or any commodities, goods, or
services of any kind that bear a substantial relationship to the health, safety,
welfare, and economic well-being of the citizens of the Commonwealth.
		&#8220;State of emergency&#8221; means the condition declared by the Governor
when in his judgment the threat or actual occurrence of an emergency or a
disaster in any part of the Commonwealth is of sufficient severity and magnitude
to warrant disaster assistance by the Commonwealth to supplement the efforts and
available resources of the several localities and relief organizations in
preventing or alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering threatened or
caused thereby and is so declared by him.

HISTORY: 1973, c. 260; 1974, c. 4; 1975, c. 11; 1978, c. 60; 1979, c. 193; 1981,
c. 116; 1984, c. 743; 1993, c. 671; 2000, c. 309; 2004, cc. 773, 1021; 2008, cc.
121, 157; 2020, c. 483.