The National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) is an organization dedicated to the preventing, supervising, and providing relief and rehabilitation from man-made or natural disasters. It is composed of public and private members headed by state directors of emergency management. It works in partnership with The Council of State Governments.
Emergency management is a relatively young field, historically. In the past, the U.S. government simply passed laws to provide relief to areas struck by disaster, starting in 1803 when Congress decided to help Portsmouth, New Hampshire when it suffered from a series of fires.
It was only in 1974, when President Richard Nixon signed the Disaster Relief Act, that also brought the National Emergency Management Association into being, that provided this field a thorough nationwide scope. Apart from relief (which is just one component of the field), emergency management also concentrates on preparation for and mitigation of disaster and any other threat to an area and its population, among other tasks.
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