Hello
Welcome to the March edition of Emergency Management Solutions.
Snow in the San Francisco Bay Area? Seventy-four mile per hour winds? That's just edging into hurricane category! Anyone still really believe that the climate is not changing? The recent experiences of my friends and family back in California is another reminder that we need to be prepared for the unexpected. San Francisco has zero experience with snow and no resources to deal with a significant snowfall, which fortunately this was not. We're used to winds but not at this velocity and there was a lot of damage from falling trees and the occasional roof and glass materials. We're not alone, though. Here in Ireland, there is only one snowplow in the entire country, kept at the airport to keep runways clear. The rest of us make do with salt and gravel.
In this month's featured articles, Tim Riecker reviews two recent audits of big city emergency management offices and makes some pertinent comments on the utility of such audits. Erik Bernstein offers tips for dealing with "difficult conversations", something we deal with regularly in emergency management. My article this month builds on last month's to consider how and why we should be involved in national politics.
Be well!
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Canton on Emergency Management
By Lucien G. Canton, CEM
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Politics and the Emergency Manager - Part 2
Last month I wrote about the importance of emergency managers understanding and being involved in their local political process. However, that’s only part of the issue. Local and state politics are more immediate but national politics can have long range implications for local emergency management programs. While an emergency manager will naturally be more focused on local political issues, it is critical that they also be cognizant of what is happening at the national level.
To understand why participation in national politics is important, we need to understand that our current emergency management system is not the product of intelligent design. Instead it is a collection of programs and directives resulting from legislation driven by what sociologists refer to as “focusing events.” A focusing event is a disaster that is so serious in its consequences that it creates sufficient public concern to force politicians to make changes to policies and laws. In other words, bad things happen and public outrage forces politicians to react, or in many cases, overreact.
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© 2023 - Lucien G. Canton
Lucien Canton is a management consultant specializing in helping managers lead better in a crisis. He is the former Director of Emergency Services for San Francisco and the author of the best-selling Emergency Management: Concepts and Strategies for Effective Programs used as a textbook in many higher education courses.
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The Contrarian Emergency Manager
By Timothy "Tim" Riecker
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Big City Emergency Management Audits
Before I get into the findings of the audits, there are a few things I want to express. First off, I think third party audits are great. Organizations are supposed to be taking certain actions – either dictated by mandate, devised by their own commitment, or encouraged by demonstrated need – and so often fall short in execution. We can all make excuses, many of them justifiable and valid, as to why actions weren’t taken or completed, and while an external evaluation may lack important context, they can help keep us on track. All that said, I wonder who the people were conducting the audits. Do they have any backgrounds in emergency management? Is that even necessary? Certainly, emergency management is a complex system of systems, that non-emergency managers could understand, but did the auditors have that understanding? It seems to be a failure right off that only emergency management offices were audited and not emergency management programs of those jurisdictions. I think we have great precedent and understanding of that demonstrated by the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP), as their accreditation reviews are of programs, not just agencies. Those items expressed, let’s get to the meat of the audits. Feel free to dive into the audits for additional information.
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© 2023 - Timothy Riecker, CEDP
Used with Permission
Tim Riecker is a founding member, partner and principal consultant with Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC, a private consulting firm serving government, businesses, and not for profit organizations in various aspects of emergency and disaster preparedness.
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Bernstein Crisis Management
by Erik Bernstein
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Crisis Communications Firm’s Tips for Navigating Tough Conversations
The occasional tough conversation is a part of doing business. Though these aren’t the task you’ll handle most frequently, it’s important to recognize that the way you handle those discussions can often determine whether you have an operational issue to address or face a full-blown crisis that threatens your reputation, your ability to operate, and your bottom line.
Piling the pressure on to any tough conversation is the fact that virtually every person in any given room has a high-definition recording device right on their person in the form of a cellphone, and widespread knowledge of how to get that footage online. This means that, like it or not, a volatile interaction – whether with a single individual or a room full of shareholders – can suddenly represent, in the public eye, your core company culture, viewpoints, and attitude.
If this thought makes you break out in sweat you’re not alone, which is why we’re here with our crisis communications firm’s top tips for navigating tough conversations:
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© 2023 - Erik Bernstein
Used with permission
Erik Bernstein is President of Bernstein Crisis Management, a specialized firm dedicated to providing holistic strategies for managing crisis situations.
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Stephen Flynn: The Edge of Disaster Rebuilding a Resilient Nation
Author and leading security expert Stephen Flynn discusses The Edge of Disaster Rebuilding a Resilient Nation with Patricia Gras on a Houston PBS the Connection Special. Are we vulnerable to disaster, terrorism or acts of God? Is America living on borrowed time? His book is a wakeup call demanding that we shake off our denial and sense of helplessness and start preparing immediately for a safer future.
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FEMA seeks input on National Resilience Guidance
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is spearheading an effort to create national resilience guidance and resources for the whole community to help everyone understand and fulfil their critical roles related to increasing national resilience.
FEMA will engage a broad range of stakeholders to develop the resilience guidance and resources. The agency is seeking input from many disciplines, sectors, levels of government, communities, and individuals on a range of topics, including:
- Actions and partnerships needed to increase national resilience.
- The roles and responsibilities of whole community stakeholders.
- Innovative approaches for successful resilience planning.
- The resources needed to help the whole community understand and execute their roles.
FEMA is holding six listening sessions, starting Thursday, April 13. Registration is required and on a first-come, first-served basis.
See FEMA’s National Resilience Guidance page to learn more about this project, register for any of the six upcoming listening sessions, and learn about additional ways you can network with other stakeholders and contribute your input.
Virtual Tabletop Exercise Program Fiscal Year 2023
EMI conducts a series of VTTX using a virtual platform to reach community-based training audiences around the country and provide a virtual forum for disaster training. The VTTX process involves key personnel from the emergency management Community of Practice (CoP) reviewing a pre-packaged set of exercise materials and convening for a 4-hour tabletop exercise discussion of a simulated disaster scenario with a total of 10‒15 other CoP groups participating.
The event allows the connected sites to assess current plans, policies, and procedures while learning from the other connected sites, as they provide their perspective and practice while exercising a similar situation. An internet connection is required to take part, and it will be broadcast using Zoom; there is no cost for this program.
Free Webinar Series
The Natural Hazards Center, in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is pleased to present the Making Mitigation Work Webinar Series. These free one-hour webinars feature innovative speakers and highlight progress in mitigation policy, practice, and research.
Save the dates for future Making Mitigation Work webinars:
April 18, 2023, 11:00 a.m. to Noon MST
May 16, 2023, 11:00 a.m. to Noon MST
June 13, 2023, 11:00 a.m. to Noon MST
FEMA Higher Education Call for Research Proposals
NTED’s Higher Education (HiEd) Program will fund competitive multidisciplinary applied research proposals that examine real world complex problems and provide actionable recommendations to advance the discipline of emergency management.
Focus Areas
Proposals must fall under one or more of the following focus areas:
- Fostering Equity
- Climate Resilience
- Emergency Management Workforce
Particular consideration will be paid towards projects that analyze communities’ use of future conditions data and/or measuring loss avoidance and the efficacy of risk reductions.
Proposal Criteria
Proposals are due to the HiEd Program by midnight Eastern Time on April 3, 2023.
All projects should be scoped for 3-9 months and address one or more of the focus areas.
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Professional Development Opportunities
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April 20-21, 2023
Virtual
The conference will provide two days of learning opportunities with day one including a mix of speaker and sponsored solution sessions. On day two, attendees will have multiple choices of training sessions, many provided by federal partners.
May 1-2, 2023
Mesa, Arizona
The IPSA brings together all public safety professionals – law enforcement, fire service, EMS, telecommunications, emergency management, public health, and others – to collaborate and learn from each other in support of united preparedness, response, and recovery efforts.
May 7-11, 2023
Raleigh, North Carolina
The world’s largest and most comprehensive floodplain management conference.
National Emergency Training Center (NETC) Emmitsburg, Maryland
June 5-7, 2023
Connecting our Past with our Future: Celebrating Community Impact through 25 Years of the FEMA Higher Education Symposium
Broomfield, Colorado
July 9-12, 2023
More information to follow!
November 3-9, 2023
Long Beach, CA
The goal of the IAEM Annual Conference is to improve the knowledge, competency level and collaborative skills of attendee.
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The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation
by Stephen Flynn
Why do we remain unprepared for the next terrorist attack or natural disaster? Where are we most vulnerable? How have we allowed our government to be so negligent? Who will keep you and your family safe? Is America living on borrowed time? How can we become a more resilient nation?
Americans are in denial when it comes to facing up to how vulnerable our nation is to disaster, be it terrorist attack or act of God. We have learned little from the cataclysms of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. When it comes to catastrophe, America is living on borrowed time–and squandering it. In this new book, leading security expert Stephen Flynn issues a call to action, demanding that we wake up and prepare immediately for a safer future.
The truth is acts of terror cannot always be prevented, and nature continues to show its fury in frighteningly unpredictable ways. Resiliency, argues Flynn, must now become our national motto. With chilling frankness and clarity, Flynn paints an all too real scenario of the threats we face within our own borders. A terrorist attack on a tanker carrying liquefied natural gas into Boston Harbor could kill thousands and leave millions more of New Englanders without power or heat. The destruction of a ship with a cargo of oil in Long Beach, California, could bring the West Coast economy to its knees and endanger the surrounding population. But even these all-too-plausible terrorist scenarios pale in comparison to the potential destruction wrought by a major earthquake or hurricane.
Our growing exposure to man-made and natural perils is largely rooted in our own negligence, as we take for granted the infrastructure handed down to us by earlier generations. Once the envy of the world, this infrastructure is now crumbling. After decades of neglect, our public health system leaves us at the mercy of microbes that could kill millions in the next flu pandemic. Flash flooding could wipe out a fifty-year-old dam north of Phoenix, placing thousands of homes and lives at risk. The next San Francisco earthquake could destroy century-old levees, contaminating the freshwater supply that most of California relies on for survival.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The Edge of Disaster tells us what we can do about it, as individuals and as a society. We can–and, Flynn argues, we must–construct a more resilient nation. With the wounds of recent national tragedies still unhealed, the time to act is now.
Flynn argues that by tackling head-on, eyes open the perils that lie before us, we can remain true to our most important and endearing national trait: our sense of optimism about the future and our conviction that we can change it for the better for ourselves–and our children.
About the author:
Stephen Flynn is among the world's most widely cited experts on homeland security and trade and transportation security issues. A senior fellow with the National Security Studies Program at the Council on Foreign Relations since 1999, he is the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller America the Vulnerable.
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Emergency Management: Concepts and Strategies for Effective Programs
Second Edition
by Lucien G. Canton
This book looks at the larger context within which emergency management response occurs, and stresses the development of a program to address a wide range of issues. Not limited to traditional emergency response to natural disasters, it addresses a conceptual model capable of integrating multiple disciplines and dealing with unexpected emergencies.
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Looking for a speaker for your conference? I offer keynotes, seminars, workshops, and webinars, either in person or virtually. You can find more details and sample videos on my website.
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©Lucien G. Canton 2023. All rights reserved.
You may reprint and excerpt this newsletter provided that you include my copyright, the source,
the author, and "reprinted with permission."
ISSN: 2334-590X
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