You can forgive Megan Eckles if she measures time in wind, rain and fire.
For much of her career, she has been in the front row for the anticipation, occurrence and aftermath of snowstorms, rain, floods, wind, fire and any other natural disasters possible in Nebraska.
But for a year she spent in Iowa, Eckles worked for the state of Nebraska from 2013 to 2026, much of it focusing on connecting people to the resources they needed.
She first joined the state at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and recalls working with Seward County information for “forty-two twenty-five,” referencing Disaster Declaration 4225 that followed the tornado that struck Beaver Crossing in 2014.
In 2015, she moved to the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, and in 2017 moved on to the Nebraska State Patrol Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and Nebraska Information Analysis Center (NIAC).
She joined the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in 2019, using her experience to work in its public assistance programs.
That began a seven-year stretch working in programs related to the recovery and public assistance programs the state offers to residents and communities impacted by weather or other events.
It included the onset of the 2019 floods and rolled into the country’s first pandemic in recent history with COVID before she moved to the agency’s operational side, becoming a situation unit leader and section chief to take on a unique role.
“I did not even know there was such a thing,” she said as she recounted her career path.
As the person assigned to staff the State Watch Center, she spent her days monitoring six television screens for emerging weather conditions and potential threats via news, radar and other indicators. She prepared daily briefings and maps for 600 Nebraska stakeholders.
Those stakeholders included law enforcement, public utilities, colleges, weather stations, firefighters, and others who might need the information to prepare for what was coming. Her briefings helped them prepare for and fight major fires in 2022 and 2023.
She was an operational manager when the 2024 Arbor Day Outbreak of tornados wreaked havoc from Lincoln to Blair.
Eckles has completed a list of operational and emergency-related certifications, including All Hazards Type 3 Situational Unit Leader at the state and regional level for Emergency Management Assistance Compact and Southeast Nebraska-EMAC.
She is 95% of the way to becoming the state’s first accredited situation leader based on her work with Nebraska and other disaster situations. That portion of her work means she can be deployed with EMAC or SNEMAC to disaster sites all over when needed.
She was also one of three “alerting authorities” for Nebraska and earned the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Advanced Professional Certification.
Eckles is well versed in state, regional and national policies and procedures for emergency management.
“I like that stuff,” she said of the constant learning and testing involved in certification. “My personality fits in good with emergency management because I am always planning, always looking for a solution.”
In March, Eckles became Seward County’s emergency manager, a role to which she brings a broad knowledge of disaster preparedness and response to the county she has lived in since 2005.
NEMA, she notes, has full departments for community outreach, grants, hazard mitigation, information technology and communications, planning, exercise and training, public assistance, public information, state emergency response, and she worked with most if not all during her time there.
Now, for the scope of Seward County, all those areas are in her half-time job description – plus the other half of her job in the Seward County Zoning office, where she is learning a whole new set of regulations and processes.
She likes the idea of working where she lives, where she raised her children and where she sees her soon-to-be seven grandchildren.
Emergency management at the local level may not have been the obvious career route, but Eckles said she upped her ante, leaving the bank of computer screens for a variety of tasks.
“I have a pick-up and a laptop,” she said.
She now monitors the skies and forecasts specifically for Seward County. This is where the frontline response for storms and other disasters lives. She is sending out weather alerts on Facebook, reaching out to the volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians around the county, and talking to people about being prepared for the worst.
She helped with the Seward County Emergency Preparedness Expo that debuted on April 11, and presented a program on readiness for Seward County residents.
“It has been tail-to-tail running since I got here,” she said.
She hopes to increase training opportunities offered in Seward County for those who have official emergency roles and for the general public, drawing on some of her state and federal knowledge, though she notes the Homeland Security options may be limited during the current shutdown.
She notes keeping people CPR-certified and knowledgeable about how to respond to health emergencies with an automated external defibrillator (AED) can make positive differences.
“I want people to be confident in their first responses, even at the public level,” Eckles said.
