Ex-NW firefighter returns as top county emergency manager
Scotty Stokes
By JOHN M. WYLIE II, Editor
Tulsa Fire Capt. Scotty R. Stokes, a Rogers County resident who started his professional firefighting career at Northwest, has been named Rogers County Emergency Management Director.
Stokes, who takes office March 11, now lives in the Limestone area of rural Owasso/Collinsville.
He has 23 years of emergency services experience and other than brief stints in Alaska and Arkansas, has lived in this area his entire life.
At age 43, he’s now eligible to draw his pension and start a second career. Training in handling natural and manmade disasters piqued his interest in emergency management.
“When the (emergency management) position became available in Rogers County I thought, ‘What a time to put in for it’,” Stokes said Tuesday.
He was named to the post last week by the Rogers County Commission. It was left vacant after longtime director Bob Anderson was fired just after New Year’s Day.
OTEMS Operations Director Kelly Deal has held the post on an interim basis since, and has agreed to stay on for a two-week transition period after Stokes takes office.
“I know Kelly has been doing a lot of stuff,” said Stokes. “He has been doing me a huge favor.”
Stokes said one of the first things he wants to do is develop a better way to warn Rogers County’s almost 90,000 residents of impending emergencies.
“One of the things I see very lacking is an early warning system for tornadoes, floods and anything along those lines.
“The cost of tornado sirens is so large (that) the cost of covering the county would be astronomical,” he said.
His initial thought is an emergency telephone system that calls residents.
“The benefit to those emergency phone systems is you can use them for so many other purposes. It is almost endless the types of things you can use (them) for,” Stokes added.
Category: News
