Emergency management — Brevard County, Florida

Brevard County Emergency Management, an office of the county's Public Safety Group led by Director John Scott, runs disaster planning, response and recovery for the county, answering to the Board of County Commissioners in Viera (Brevard County Emergency Management).

The county's own description is that the office leads countywide efforts to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters, and that it delivers education and resources to residents, businesses, nonprofit organizations and local governments across Brevard (Brevard County Emergency Management). The same page lists the Board of County Commissioners at 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way in Viera, and the county code makes that board the appointing authority for the emergency management director.

Brevard County Code chapter 42, article V, rewritten by Ordinance 2024-10 on May 21, 2024, defines the Brevard County Emergency Management Department as the department responsible for mitigation of, preparation for, response to and recovery from emergencies and disasters, and assigns it the implementation and maintenance of the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, known as the CEMP (Brevard County Code chapter 42). The same article defines the emergency management director as the individual appointed by the board of county commissioners who runs the department and coordinates emergency management activities within Brevard.

State law sets the floor for that job. Section 252.38 requires every county emergency management agency to have a director with, among other things, fifty hours of training in public administration or emergency management (a bachelor's degree may substitute) and four years of verifiable emergency management experience, appointed by the county commission or chief administrative officer to serve at its pleasure (Section 252.38, Florida Statutes). The Brevard County Emergency Management director is appointed by the county commission under that rule.

The Brevard County Emergency Management Office is listed at 1751 Huntington Lane in Rockledge, with the main line at (321) 637-6670 and email at Brevard.EOC@BrevardFL.gov (Brevard County Emergency Management).

The fax line at the Rockledge office is (321) 633-1738, and the county's general number for finding a department is (321) 633-2000 (Brevard County). During a storm, Palm Bay's preparedness page points residents to the Brevard County Emergency Management citizen hotline by dialing 211, and to the State Assistance Information Line at (800) 342-3557, which the state activates when an emergency hits Florida (City of Palm Bay).

The code separates the office from the room it runs in a disaster. The Brevard County Emergency Operations Center, or county EOC, is defined as the site of the direction and control functions for the county's response to a disaster or emergency (Brevard County Code chapter 42). During a declared emergency the commission chair may establish a primary and one or more secondary emergency operating centers to keep government running in Brevard.

Before a disaster, Brevard County Emergency Management issues alerts, hazard information and preparedness guidance, and points residents to AlertBrevard, the address-based notification system used by county emergency management, the Sheriff's Office and local police and utility departments (Brevard County Emergency Management).

AlertBrevard registrations tie phone numbers and email addresses to an address such as a home, a business or a parent's home, and the system sends notices about boil-water orders, shelter-in-place or evacuation orders and similar events by call, text or email (Brevard County). The City of Palm Bay uses the same AlertBrevard service to send its own emergency notifications by phone, email, text and social media (City of Palm Bay).

The office's hazard list reflects the Space Coast: alongside flooding, storm surge, tropical cyclones, tornados, wildfire, extreme heat and extreme cold, it lists hazardous materials, a nuclear accident, a tsunami and a launch anomaly (Brevard County Emergency Management). Launch activity shows up in its news feed too: a March 26, 2026, release covered how Brevard County prepared for the Artemis II launch.

Drought work is part of the job in Brevard. A May 8, 2026, county release announced a burn ban during ongoing drought conditions, and a June 22, 2026, release said a burn ban imposed after the Keetch-Byram Drought Index exceeded 500 had been lifted, with the index then in the 350 to 400 range (Brevard County Emergency Management). The release named the Board of County Commissioners, Brevard County Fire Rescue, Brevard County Emergency Management and the Division of Forestry as the agencies watching conditions.

In Brevard the chair of the Board of County Commissioners, or the vice chair, declares a local state of emergency after input from the county manager or the emergency management director, and each declaration lasts seven days unless extended (Brevard County Code section 42-133).

Under section 42-133 the county manager may extend a declaration in seven-day increments, and the full board can end it by majority vote once no hazard remains (Brevard County Code). If the chair and vice chair are both unavailable, authority passes to the remaining commissioners in ascending order of districts, and if no commissioner is available the county manager may exercise the emergency powers.

Once a Brevard emergency is declared, section 42-134 lets the chair order protective actions after hearing from the emergency management director, including issuing evacuation orders (area, timing, effective date and termination) and shelter operations decisions about which shelters to open and when (Brevard County Code section 42-134). Section 42-135 adds powers to waive normal formalities for contracts, purchases and hiring, declare areas off limits to all but emergency personnel, and request state assistance or mutual aid.

Inside the Brevard EOC, operations are organized into 19 emergency support functions, each managed by a primary agency with support agencies, and the Board of County Commissioners is the lead agency for EOC operations (Brevard County Code section 42-131). A separate emergency coordination group brings together senior officials from Brevard County, the Department of Health in Brevard, Brevard Public Schools, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office and the Space Coast Public Management Association to share information, with each member keeping its own authority.

Brevard Public Schools makes its own closure call: Palm Bay's page notes that the superintendent of Brevard Public Schools is the only person who directs schools to close for extreme weather (City of Palm Bay).

Florida law lets cities such as Palm Bay and Melbourne run their own emergency management programs, but each must coordinate with Brevard County Emergency Management, and cities without a program are served by the county agency (Section 252.38, Florida Statutes).

Section 252.38(2) also requires every city plan to be consistent with the county plan and every city request for state or federal response assistance to go through the county (Section 252.38). The state defines a local emergency management agency as an organization created to carry out the emergency management responsibilities of a political subdivision (Section 252.34, Florida Statutes). For a city such as Palm Bay, that means its requests for state or federal response help go through Brevard County Emergency Management.

Palm Bay houses its program in the city's Fire Rescue and Emergency Management department, whose preparedness page sends residents to AlertBrevard and to the Brevard County Emergency Preparedness Guide for evacuation routes and shelters (City of Palm Bay).

Hurricane Milton showed the split in 2024. On October 8, 2024, Palm Bay Mayor Rob Medina signed Legislative Order No. D-2024-02 declaring a local state of emergency for the city, effective at 12:00 p.m., and city facilities closed at noon that day, set to reopen on October 11, 2024 (City of Palm Bay). The city said it was working closely with Brevard County Emergency Management, that no evacuation orders had been announced for Brevard County at that point, and that residents could text BREVARDEOC to 888777 for county alerts.

After a major disaster, Brevard County Code section 42-136 has county crews first cut and toss debris to the county rights-of-way to open the major arterial roads for search, rescue and recovery, before full debris removal begins (Brevard County Code section 42-136).

The county notifies Brevard residents of the start date for debris removal by county work forces and again before the last removal pass, after which residents are responsible for removing what remains through regular collection or a private contractor (Brevard County Code). The code's stated aim is collection across unincorporated roads, gated communities and public areas, and the county may extend debris removal into cities such as Palm Bay or Melbourne through interlocal agreements.

Housing is the other recovery tool in chapter 42. During a declared state of local emergency, section 42-137 allows a maximum of one temporary housing unit, such as a recreational vehicle or travel trailer, on an existing home site when the home has been declared uninhabitable and the resident is in a noncongregate sheltering program run by the Florida Division of Emergency Management or FEMA (Brevard County Code section 42-137). The code defines temporary housing as accommodation for a period of generally up to 36 months.

State law also makes the county the go-between for help: section 252.38 says counties serve as liaison for and coordinator of municipalities' requests for state and federal assistance during postdisaster operations (Section 252.38). Palm Bay's page lists the FEMA assistance line at (800) 621-3362 for applying or checking status by phone (City of Palm Bay).

Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the Brevard County website.