05/13/2021 Harrisburg, PA – The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) and Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti today discussed how flexible disaster emergency declarations allow emergency officials to meet the needs of communities before, during and after an emergency. “Many people are looking at this issue through the lens of the COVID-19 response,” PEMA Director Randy Padfield said. “But the COVID-19 pandemic was the first disaster declaration in the state’s history ever issued in response to a pandemic. Drastically changing a process that has worked well for all other disasters that we’ve experienced in the past is extremely short sighted and equates to a knee-jerk reaction that will only serve to adversely impact the state’s ability to respond in a timely and efficient manner to address the needs of those impacted by all future disasters.”