Chapter 75, Laws of 1967, which reorganized the executive branch of state government in Wisconsin, transferred the Bureau of Civil Defense from the Executive Office to the new Department of Local Affairs and Development where it became the Division of Emergency Government. In 1979 the Division was transferred to the Department of Administration and on October 1, 1989, to the Department of Military Affairs.
The Division of Emergency Government implements and coordinates statewide programs of emergency preparedness for enemy attack and natural or man-made disasters; coordinates state and federal resources in the repair or restoration of vital public facilities destroyed by such disasters; administers federal disaster and emergency funds; and conducts programs of emergency planning, training, and education for state and local government, business and industry, and the general public. The division is also responsible for the state's role in nuclear power plant incident response exercises mandated by federal law.
The state's emergency government function has gradually shifted from civil defense to natural and man-made disaster emergency response. Accordingly, records from the 1950s and 1960s document two basic roles of the Office of Civil Defense and its successors: 1) planning for evacuation and survival in the event of a nuclear attack; 2) coordinating the development of a state and local warning and emergency response system. Records from the 1970s to the present focus more on emergency response to natural disasters, nuclear power plant accidents, hazardous materials spills and in rare instances civil unrest. Thus, the two basic roles of the Division of Emergency Government have been: 1) planning for natural and man made disasters; 2) emergency response to actual disasters or unrest.
