The annual Governor's Hurricane Conference will be held next week at the Sea Trail Resort and Conference Center in Sunset Beach, N.C. The theme of this year's conference is "Disaster Preparedness: Business as Usual or Building a Sustainable Future."

Among the guest speakers on Monday, March 12th will be Secretary Bryan Beatty of the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, and Max Mayfield, Director of the National Hurricane Center.

Sixty topics will be presented over the course of the conference including environmental and public health, sheltering and safe rooms, redevelopment, hazard mitigation, business continuity, floodplain mapping, evacuations, animal response, debris management, and much more. A full conference agenda is available at the N.C. Division of Emergency Management web site at www.ncem.org.

The conference is co-sponsored by the Division of Emergency Management, the Emergency Management Association, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation, the Salvation Army, and the Cooperative Extension Service.

You are invited to cover any portion of the conference. Tom Hegele, Chief Public Information Officer for N.C. Emergency Management, will be on site to assist you. If you need information prior to the conference, please call our office at 919-733-5027. Thank you.