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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ARCHIVES

Red Teaming for Disaster Preparedness

Many companies and government offices were unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and sustained lockdowns, despite years of warnings and guidance from experts and the federal government. This lack of preparedness cost companies dearly, from delays in setting up work from home software to supply chain disruptions that could have been

Start or Restart VOADs/COADs During the Preparedness Phase

Volunteer and community organizations active in disaster (VOADs/COADs) operate best by using their four C’s: cooperation, coordination, collaboration, and communication. Emergency managers can build or strengthen this whole community capability in their own jurisdictions through public-private partnerships (PPPs), by performing the four E’s – empower, endow, educate, and entrust.

Situational Awareness for Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration

In an emergency response, multiple groups of stakeholders such as city, county, state, and federal agencies are brought together to solve a crisis or execute a mission. While groups of individuals from within an agency may have a shared understanding of their mission, organization, hierarchy, and norms of engagement, proper

The Other Life of Command Trucks

For many years, large outdoor sporting events have requested government and nongovernment organization mobile command and communications trucks to support races. Although traditionally used by incident commanders, volunteer amateur radio groups have found various ways to collaborate during special events and use these resources in Minneapolis, Minnesota to support medical

Connecting: Benefits & Risks

To take a multidisciplinary, multijurisdictional approach to disaster preparedness and response, agencies and organizations must connect both in person and virtually. Mutual aid agreements enable agencies to share resources and develop a collaborative strategy for addressing emerging threats. Although predicted by experts, the threats that presented over the past year

Fixing America’s Healthcare Supply Chain

The buildup to World War II illustrated the negative effect that huge wartime demand for medical supplies, equipment, and pharmaceuticals had on public and private healthcare systems in the United States. After the war, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) began building and pre-positioning federally owned medical materiel in storage depots

Impact of Critical Biosecurity Reports – Uncertainty Remains

Domestic Preparedness published an article in 2016 discussing the uncertain impact of several biosecurity reports on national planning and preparedness for biosecurity and pandemic threats. The article focused on the consistent and repeated warnings of the consequences for failing to plan and prepare for a multitude of biosecurity threats. The

What Are Preparedness Professionals Doing?

With all the thought, planning, and training that go into disaster preparedness efforts, communities theoretically should be ready for any threat and hazard that they face regularly – severe storms, wildfires, hurricanes, power outages, earthquakes, droughts, mudslides, etc. However, that is not always true. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Post-Hazard Event Airport Recovery

The role airports play in the world is critical. Even a minor disruption to their operations has immediate cascading impacts, which can be familiar to anyone who has experienced a delayed departure and the dreaded “Will I make my connection?” stress that follows. However, airport disruptions create far greater economic

National Preparedness Failure: Hindsight Is 2020

In February 2021, the Congressional Research Service released an evaluative nonpartisan report on the National Preparedness System (NPS). This report noted problems and difficulties experienced in 2020 during the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. For example, lack of personal protective equipment, disorganized logistical distribution, and other issues that demand attention. In

Formalizing the Role of Intelligence & Investigation

Emergency managers need actionable intelligence before, during, and after disasters. More than just situational awareness, the collection, analysis, and sharing of intelligence can provide an incident’s response and recovery command and general staff with much needed decision-making information.

Coastlines Are Now a Moving Target – Literally

In March 2021, a Cape Cod weather station in Chatham, Massachusetts was abandoned due to coastal erosion. With much media coverage, some of the articles mentioned that the situation is likely to worsen. The fact that they associated the erosion with climate change and that it was a weather station

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