Familiar face takes on leading role in Monroe County

MONROE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – A familiar face in Monroe County’s Emergency Management office lands a new job.

Almost 14 years to the day she started as the deputy EMA director, Donna Sanderson takes over the top job.

For nearly two decades, Donna Sanderson has served as the co-captain with the Monroe County EMA Director, now she’s steering the ship.

Monroe County EMA and 911 Director, Donna Sanderson said her journey in emergency management all started by accident.

While working for a furniture plant out-of-town, the now seasoned emergency manager was hoping to land a job closer to home.

“I was scheduling like day-to-day operations and I had been driving to New Albany every day for three years and when this came open right here at home, I jumped on it and I have never regretted it.”

She says she’s thrilled to take on her role, and although she’s familiar with the duties, she says she still has a lot to learn.

Sanderson says it’s not an 8 to 5 job. Being director comes with being on call 24/7, working seven days a week, always being prepared, plus working on emergency plans day in and day out, as well as searching for available grant money to help pay for it all.

“Coordinating plans for fire, law, EMS. Working with MEMA, FEMA. Working with elected officials, you know, it’s challenging, but it’s rewarding.”

On top of keeping up with what you need to know, the EMA Director says you also have to keep up with ‘who you know’ because everything is always changing.

“They change every day and every day you have a different contact person, you know, from the county, up to the federal, you have different contact persons, so you really have to keep your who you know up to date.”

She says just like there are agencies out there for every emergency, there also have to be plans for any possibility.

“Mostly it’s like who to call, who do you need, what do you need during a tornado and right now, I’m working on plans for an earthquake.”

Sanderson says it doesn’t matter how much a county exercises their emergency plans because something will go wrong in a real event.

She says she saw it firsthand seven years into her job, when Smithville was hit.

“That was real and that’s where we found out where a lot of our shortfalls were, but I think Smithville, you know, we did a really good job on Smithville, and we made a lot of friends at Smithville. There was a lot of tragedies at Smithville and that is, I’ll never forget Smithville.”

Sanderson also balances duties as the 911 Director for the county also.

She oversees 7 full-time and 2 part-time dispatchers.