EMA Director Adam Leads Hancock County’s Disaster Readiness

Good Neighbor - March 2024

​Brian “Hooty” Adam loves his job. Ask anyone who knows him or anyone who deals with him as the Emergency Management Agency Director of Hancock County. They’ll tell you that Hancock County feels safer and is a more resilient place because of Hooty’s role as EMA director.
 
- by Maurice Singleton

Brian "Hooty" Adam (top row, third from left) and his family.

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“Hooty is good at what he does,” said Hancock County Board of Supervisor president Scotty Adam, of Brian “Hooty” Adam, director of Hancock County’s Emergency Management Agency. He is also Hooty’s younger brother. “Whether it’s opening cold-weather shelters, preparing for a disaster, or leading the recovery after a disaster, he’s very passionate about helping the people of Hancock County.”
 
“Dedication to the job is the way I look at it,” said Hooty. “It’s very satisfying to me to be working in my hometown and being able to help the cities and the people.”
 

 
Adam has served the citizens of Hancock County as EMA director since 2003, but he has worked in the safety arena since 1985, when he began his career as a fireman in Diamondhead. At first he had no idea if he wanted to be a fireman, but he said the first house fire call he went on changed that. “It was a rush being able to put out that fire,” Adam recalled. “It was something that I had never experienced before. Being able to save that house was very gratifying.”
 
Putting out that first fire and the many calls over an 18-year career as a firefighter helped prepare Adam to deal with emergencies. “He’s had quite a career since he first became a fireman,” said Scotty. “He’s taken advantage of every training and every certification available to him. He could retire if he wanted to, but he absolutely loves what he does.”
 

 
Hooty said that when he took over the job as EMA director, the Civil Defense and the Fire Service had recently been combined. “When I took the job, I had a lot of fire experience,” said Adam. “Hurricanes, not so much.”
 
He was on the job only two years when Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2005. He said that although he thought there were good hurricane preparedness and recovery plans in place, they learned later that there were some things they hadn’t accounted for. One was the large number of volunteers who came from all over the country to help with the recovery.
 

Photos from 2005 post-Katrina.

 
“There were a lot of lessons learned,” Adam added, “but I couldn’t have been more proud of the way our citizens responded. They were amazing.”
 
During the past 21 years, Adam has had more than his share of disasters to contend with: multiple hurricanes, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and local flooding. The consensus is clear that Adam is the go-to person who leads disaster preparations as well as recoveries with calmness and passion, which is both respected and appreciated by the citizens, his constituents, and local leaders.
 

 
“Hooty is so valuable,” said Bay St. Louis Mayor Mike Favre. “He’s got the experience; he’s got the connections. To have him available to not just the county but to the entities in the county just means so much to all of us.
 
“He keeps us well informed,” said Favre. “Before Zeta, Hooty made sure we were prepared and checked to see if there was anything the city needed, such as equipment or personal things. When he storm had passed, everybody was communicating. He kept everything going.”
 
Hooty is an asset to our community, and we appreciate all his contributions to Hancock County.

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