Elizabeth Czarick 1

Weekly Journal #3

KINS 4306

Monday, May 22nd

Today was a slow day, and definitely was not as exciting of a start as last week was, as

my supervisor had a presentation, so he was gone for a good part of the day. I was okay with this

though because I got to sit with the other employees and ask them questions about their specific

jobs. One person I sat with the most is Ashley, who does the hazard mitigation plans for the

county. She showed me all of the different websites she uses and how she writes up the plans for

the county. While today was slow, I am excited about tomorrow and Wednesday because I have

been invited to attend training for the Gwinnett Search Team with new trainees. I think this will

be an interesting and fun learning experience, so I am extremely excited to learn and put those

new skills to the test.

Tuesday, May 23rd

Today we started the Gwinnett Search Team training which is just used to train people

who are joining the search and rescue team for Gwinnett County. For the first half of the day, we

learned the basic search skills. We learned about what situations the search team will be called

out for, and that the only way the search team will go to join a search is if the “incident

commander” calls the duty officer of Emergency Management and lets them know they are

needed. In total, there are forty-six people on the search team, thirty of those who are police

officers, ten of whom are trained and certified civilian volunteers, and the last six being the

Office of Emergency Management staff. Another thing we learned about was pacing and wide

area searches. A single pace is considered two steps at a normal stride, and that is used to

calculate a search radius from person to person.

Elizabeth Czarick 2

Wednesday, May 24th

Today we started the second day of Search Team training by learning a little bit about

Project Lifesaver, which is a non-profit company that created a bracelet transmitter that emits a

radio frequency specific to the person wearing it. The interesting thing about Project Lifesaver

through Gwinnett County is that it is only available to those with cognitive disabilities, so people

on the autism spectrum or with Alzheimer’s or dementia. This program is able to be implemented

on any municipal or county level public safety agency, and Gwinnett County is one of those

agencies. After learning more about Project Lifesaver, we were taught how to use the devices and

more about the transmitters for each individual person that is a part of Project Lifesaver in

Gwinnett County. After the final portion of the learning process, we went out into the field again

to evaluate our skills on transmitters that were hidden randomly throughout a park in Gwinnett

County where the most missing person calls are made from.

Thursday, May 25th

Today my supervisor and I decided on my project idea, and discussed what all I would be

doing on the WebEOC program. I spent a large majority of the day looking through the WebEOC

program and getting familiar with it since I have only used it a couple of times to move people

around in different groups. Since this is going to be what I spend most of my time for my project

on, I decided it would be good to just familiarize myself with all of the different tabs and sections

that have already been created while figuring out what tabs can be made or edited to better fit the

needs of the county’s notification system. I was also told by my supervisor that there might be a

side project that I can complete on top of my main project to ensure that I will have enough

information to complete my project requirements. Overall, today was very laid back but it was a

good change of pace from the past two days being out in the field for training.
Elizabeth Czarick 3

Friday, May 26th

This morning I met with my supervisor and one of the other employees in the Office of

Emergency Management to discuss an extra element to my project. This element is all about

resource management and depending on how much there actually is to do it might end up taking

more time than my original project. I spent the rest of the day going through all of the emergency

plans to find where in them it talked about the different aspects of resource management.

Day Time In Lunch Time Out Hours Worked

Monday, 8:20 A.M. 11:45 A.M.- 4:30 P.M 7.75

May 22nd 12:10 P.M.
Tuesday, 8:25 A.M. Working lunch 4:00 P.M. 7.58
May 23rd
Wednesday, 8:20 A.M. 11:25 A.M.- 4:45 P.M. 8.00
May 24th 11:45 A.M.
Thursday, 8:20 A.M. 11:45 A.M.- 4:30 P.M 7.83
May 25th 12:05 P.M.
Friday, 8:20 A.M. 12:00 P.M- 4:30 P.M 7.83
May 26th 12:20 P.M
Total Weekly 39.07
Hours
Total Hours to 75.08
Date