In her 11 years as director of the Limestone County Emergency Management Agency, Rita White has seen quite a bit — a major tornado outbreak the likes of which hadn’t been seen in Alabama since the 1970s, a second major outbreak three years later and a global health pandemic that’s lasted the better part of two years, for starters.

Now, she’s preparing for her next big adventure: retirement.

“I kind of want a little time just for me,” White said. “I don’t want to wait too long to retire.”

White joined the Limestone EMA about 35 years ago under then-director Spencer Black. She said she was working at a bank when a coworker told her of the open position, and she decided to give it a shot.

“In the beginning, it was mostly just updating emergency plans and doing reports,” she said. “That was pretty much it.”

She said they would occasionally have a tornado or something relatively small-scale, but it was the events of Sept. 11, 2001, that really changed EMA. A terrorist attack in New York City led to changes across the country, even in Limestone County.

“We had a lot of extra responsibilities put on us,” White said. “… We were dealing with Homeland Security then, after that. That changed EMA a lot.”

White served as assistant director until Black’s retirement in February 2010. Eddie Gilbert joined the team around that time, and it was a little more than a year later, in April 2011, that multiple tornadoes struck the area. Hundreds of homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed, and four people died.

“That was really stressful,” White said. “Just the workload for that last a year for us, because of so much damage.”

She said EMA’s main job is to help with resources, and after helping with community response, they were tasked with recovery and working with the federal EMA to get residents back on their feet. Limestone EMA also helped in getting mitigation funds for the county, White said, which in turn helped provide community safe rooms and storm shelters.

When the 2011 outbreak happened, Limestone had nine community shelters, none of which were in Athens. By the time the 2014 tornado outbreak rolled around, two were near enough to completion to be opened, while several more were being discussed or already in the works, according to News Courier reports at the time.

Today, Limestone EMA lists 14 storm shelters on its website, plus a community safe room in Ardmore, Tennessee, and a space at West Limestone High if severe weather strikes outside school hours. Athens City Schools have also discussed opening the shelter at Athens High to the public if severe weather arises outside school hours.

“That’s a big deal, because so many people do not have any sort of shelter,” White said of the EMA’s work to increase the number of shelters in Limestone County. “Being able to get those funds and get those constructed and in place, that’s been a big deal for us, and I’m going to say that’s a big achievement for us as EMA staff.”

However, not everything EMA does involves severe weather. When the novel coronavirus reached Limestone, the local EMA team again went to work, speaking at community update forums, providing a mobile command center for the Limestone County Courthouse Annex on Clinton Street and even helping with traffic control at the Limestone County Health Department’s vaccine clinic.

Though none of the work would have been possible without Emergency Management Officer Daphne Ellison and the soon-to-be interim director, Gilbert. Ellison joined the Limestone EMA as its public information officer in 2000, while Gilbert joined the staff in 2010.

“I couldn’t brag on them enough,” White said. “If I didn’t have a good staff, this program would be nothing. You just can’t do it by yourself.”

Gilbert was appointed to serve as interim director during the Limestone County Commission’s June 21 meeting. In addition to more than 10 years’ experience at the local EMA, he’s received training from the state and federal EMAs and is currently a member of the Alabama Association of Emergency Managers, “responsible for developing and maintaining emergency response plans and supporting documents for county and city agencies and public officials” in Limestone, according to the local EMA.

He will take over as interim director Thursday. Meanwhile, White plans to focus on her family. The married mother of two said she’s been working since she was 14 and is looking forward to spending more time with her elderly parents as well as getting back to hobbies and projects around her house.

Her predecessor spent 38 years with EMA before retiring but was less than two months into retirement when he suffered an accident at home that ultimately led to his death. He was 67.

“That’s probably in the back of my mind, too,” White said. “I’m 59. I don’t want to put off retirement.”

She said she’ll miss working with the variety of people and agencies that she interacts with through the EMA, and she plans to at least visit her old staff once in a while. With Limestone growing so fast, she trusts they’ll continue to try to provide a safe environment for all of the county’s residents.