Choosing Albany FIRE CHIEF CEDRIC SCOTT
IN CEDRIC SCOTT’S TIME IN ALBANY, HE HAS SEEN THE DEVASTATION OF HURRICANE MICHAEL AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC; he's had an up close and personal .. as the chief of the Albany Fire Department and the director of the Dougherty County Emergency Management Agency. “We’ve had some major issues and incidents that have happened since I’ve been here,” said Scott. “I’ve never experienced anything like what we have gone through (with the pandemic), and it challenged me, our department, and our community. It required every skill set that I think I’ve learned to be brought into play to help us deal with (it).” Scott said one of the most important things he learned through that experience was how crucial relationship building is. “We were hit very early by COVID-19, so when people were figuring it out we were going through it at the time,” said Scott. “We were one of the first communities that dealt with this hard hit pandemic that no one really knew what it was. I began to work with my team, and we worked together with Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital to work with public health, our partners at GEMA (the Georgia Emergency Management Agency) and Homeland Security. We were able to work with all those various entities including city and county government to really come together in a way that allowed us to secure necessary resources.” An up close look at all this devastation and the stress of having to help coordinate the response to it might be something that sends other people running in the opposite direction. But not Scott. Instead, Scott has been impressed by the resiliency of the community. “We are very resilient,” he said. “We are a community that you can knock us down but we’re going to get back up. We’ve got people who say 'we’re just not going to give up,' and just to be part of that, it’s very humbling. It’s very humbling for people to believe in me in a way that says we’re going to trust you with these very critical
ALBANY AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
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