- April 19, 2024
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Flagler County will soon have a new emergency management chief: Kevin Guthrie, hired as deputy emergency management chief in September, will replace current Emergency Management Division Chief Troy Harper this week.
Guthrie is a 23-year veteran of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and a professional emergency manager and master trainer certified to teach many state emergency management courses.
He’s already planning a training regimen for Flagler County staff.
"I'll be providing training to the responders who respond to any event in Flagler County, no matter how small it would be," he said. "Since we haven't had a storm here in a while, one focus will be on providing training relative to a storm."
Guthrie also plans on preparing Flagler County to take part in the statewide hurricane exercise in May.
Guthrie has served as an instructor at Florida State College in Jacksonville, Edward Walters College in Jacksonville and the North East Criminal Justice Training and Education Center.
He was the situation leader for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville and helped coordinate emergency services in Flagler County after the 2011 wildfires and in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.
After Katrina, he said, he was assigned to Pearl River County in Mississippi for about 15 days.
"The eye went right over Pearl River County. I was right at the ground zero for that storm," he said. "I was synthesizing information and processing that into actual data we could use for our response."
The information he used came from sources as varied as aerial photos and walk-ups.
Guthrie will become Flagler County emergency management division chief on Nov. 1.
