In an extraordinary step, Gov. Tom Wolf declared the state’s opioid addiction and overdose crisis a statewide disaster emergency.

Wolf said the declaration includes 13 “key initiatives,” which include enhancing coordination and data collection, speeding up and expanding access to treatment, changes to rules for EMTs responding to reported overdoses, and expanded roles for nurse practitioners who deal with addicts seeking recovery services, Wolf said Wedesday afternoon.

The extensive declaration, among other things, will allow EMTs to leave behind naloxone, an anti-overdose medication, after reviving an overdose victim who does not want to go into treatment.

It also creates an Opioid Operational Command Center within the state’s emergency management agency (PEMA) that encompasses nine state agencies; allows patients to be admitted to narcotic treatment programs without a face-to-face meeting with a physician; expands access to data from the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, which was launched in 2016; tightens regulations on powerful opioids like fentanyl and its derivatives, and loosens licensing restrictions for “high-performing” addiction treatment centers.

The announcement comes as Pennsylvania is expected to report another year of increasing overdose deaths.

Pennsylvania reported 4,642 deaths from drug overdoses in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 85 percent involved opioids.

On Wednesday Wolf said early numbers indicate that 5,260 Pennsylvanians died of drug overdoses in 2017.

The crisis hit Butler County particularly hard in 2017. By mid-November the county had matched its overdose death total — 74 — from all of 2016.

As of Wednesday the Butler County Coroner’s Office had confirmed 89 drug overdose deaths for the year, with four toxicology reports still outstanding.

The deaths were spread throughout the county according to records filed by the coroner’s office. But Butler, with 35 fatal overdoses in the city limits last year, was by far municipality with the most opioid-related deaths. Law enforcement officials and Butler County Coroner William Young III have said that most of the deaths can be attributed fentanyl, a potent cousin of morphine.

For more about this story, read Thursday’s Butler Eagle.