Meet Your First Responders

Cotton County Emergency Management has started a project called ‘Meet your First Responders and will highlight a First Responder from different agencies In Cotton County every month. This month we start off with Cotton County's Director of Emergency Management, Lori Hedges. Lori is a lifetime Cotton County resident, her parents were raised here and Lori and her husband Robert have raised their 5 children here.

Lori has worked in Law Enforcement since 1989, starting out at Cotton and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Offices. In 1997, she took a job with OHP as a Communications Officer. In 1998 Lori took on additional duties for OHP Command Post Operations based out of OKC. While with Command Post Operations and later with OHPs Quick Response Unit, she began her FEMA training in Incident Command (ICS) and National Incident Management System (NIMS), and received certifications in Tactical Dispatching and others related to Incident Command and disaster response. In 2008, Lori was offered the second additional task for the Southwest region as a quick response unit for OHP, meaning she responded first during emergencies, disasters and other operations as needed, locally and state wide, by OHP.

In 2013, Lori finished her college degree in Criminal Justice/ Psychology. She has hundreds of hours of training, experience and certifications in effective communications, emergency dispatch, tactical dispatching, disaster response, NIMS, ICS and search and rescue operations. Lori has responded to many disasters and critical incidents including wildfire events, tornados, and floods across the state. During the over 22 years with OHP, she received numerous awards and commendations for these critical incidents, including Communications Officer of the Year for the State of Oklahoma.

In 2019, Lori retired from OHP and took the job as your Emergency Management Director for Cotton County. Since 2019, she has continued her education in NIMS/ICS courses for emergency management. As your Director of Emergency Management, Lori attends workshops, conferences, training classes and connects with other emergency management professionals who are dedicated to improving emergency management strategies and tactics that in turn help our community.

In 2020, Lori wanted to further help our community in her spare time and applied for and was hired as a Deputy for Cotton County Sheriff’s Office, attending CLEET. In 2021, Lori was recognized as Reserve Deputy of the year by the Oklahoma Sheriffs Association and in 2023, she became a certified K9 Officer.

In early 2023, Cotton County, with the help of Devol Fire Department, Randlett Fire Department, and the City of Temple, we were able to implement the Hyper Reach Mass Notification system which is used to notify residents of Cotton County of emergency situations and weather warnings that threaten our area. The Hyper Reach program was a much needed countywide program that helps in Hazard preparedness and mitigation and is a project needed for our countys Hazard Mitigation Plan. Also, Because of this system, the continuing education and continual training as well as our community outreach programs, for the first time ever, Cotton County has been recognized by the National Weather Service as a Storm Ready Community.