Bastrop County is interviewing candidates to fill the position of deputy director of the Office of Emergency Management, a department that has been in flux since the death of its former director earlier this year.

The office of emergency management, which has led the county through a breadth of disasters in the past six years, including two major fires and five floods, is down by two critical staff positions. Mike Fisher, who ran the office for 12 years, including through the monstrous 2011 Complex Fire, died of cancer in July. The department’s grant coordinator resigned last month.

As the deputy director, Fisher was responsible for day-to-day management of the emergency management office. James Gabriel, Fisher’s assistant, filled in to run the office briefly, overseeing the department through several wildfires, as well as an 87,000-gallon oil spill.

In September, Gabriel resigned after two months on the job, citing problems with morale in the department and a lack of confidence from County Judge Paul Pape.

Pape, who chairs the commissioners court, is the official director of the office of emergency management. He said on Monday he has been overseeing the department since Fisher’s death and Gabriel’s resignation, with the help of his assistant Randi Fishbeck.

"We don’t have much support there now," Pape said. "Fortunately, our team has a lot of experience in dealing with disasters."

Bastrop County has suffered five major floods in the past two and a half years, in addition to the Hidden Pines Fire, which burned more than 4,500 acres north of Smithville in October 2015.

"Although I don’t have a right-hand person to turn to, our commissioners and our office of engineering and county planning and auditing just keep chugging along and getting the job done," Pape said Monday.

Sue Cerf, the department’s longtime grant coordinator, resigned effective Oct. 1. She told the Bastrop Advertiser the office had not been the same since Fisher’s passing, though she had full confidence in the county and emergency management staff in a disaster.

The deputy director position, which carries a $65,851 salary, has been posted on the county’s website. The human resources department said it has received 13 applications so far, and officials have interviewed three candidates, including Benjamin Buchanan, a community planner with the Federal Emergency Management Agency; Bradley Ellis, a contractor with International Emergency Management; and Jeffrey Taylor, a former fire chief in East Montgomery County.

Applications are still being accepted, Pape said.

"We are looking for someone who has experience and who has the maturity that it takes to manage disasters and events that happen in the county," he said. "If the right person were to just see the posting today and contact us, we want to keep our options open until we find the person that we are comfortable with."

Instead of filling Cerf’s grant-funded role, the county will be hiring a full-time administrative assistant for the emergency management office, which it included for the first time in its 2017-18 budget. Whoever is hired as deputy director will assign someone to the post. The job carries a $44,837 salary and includes responsibilities like long-range planning, regular state reporting and coordination with fire departments and emergency responders on a county emergency management plan, officials said.

"There are a lot of things that have kind of been put on the backburner since we lost Mike Fisher," Pape said. "I am looking forward to getting these positions filled."