Emergency Management Once Removed

Recovery Redux Plus a Footnote from June By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed We all know when a disaster begins: the earth moves, or the winds blow, waters rise or flames burst out of control. What continues to frustrate me is that we seldom grasp as a nation when a disaster is over. One might think, for example that Hurricane Maria was all over shortly after it passed through Puerto Rico. The "official" death toll, 64, led the president and others to comment that it could have been a lot worse. It apparently was a lot worse. A recent [...]

To Stay or Go? By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Emergency managers are not strangers to the "stay or go" dilemma. In my career, during but also before entering emergency management, I myself sometimes felt like, well, a lot of federal Administration employees may currently feel these days. For 26 ½ of my final 28 years in government, I was in an unprotected classification. I could have been dismissed any number of times, with no more than a phone call or a terse letter. There are less than ethical ways to get rid of a civil servant in a [...]

Hey, What About Us? By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed With the current federal government seemingly in perpetual crisis, how can emergency management compete for attention to its’ needs? Let’s be honest: the current spate of investigations, accusations, counter-accusations, all against the backdrop of midterm Congressional elections could stifle productive debate and decision making on issues emergency managers care about. It always seems to happen. The Clinton impeachment cycle dwarfed any attempts by his Administration to establish emergency management as a national priority despite the efforts of FEMA Administrator James Lee Witt; the post 9/11 environment saw a shift [...]

Observations from the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) 2018 Mid – Year Forum By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed The current FEMA headquarters team seems intent on making a positive difference. FEMA leadership describes itself as building on what was already in place and adapting to new situations and opportunities. FEMA continues to focus on disaster cost reduction and enlisting its state and local partners to assist in identifying areas of savings, and is recommending some positive changes to allowable management costs for states and locals. FEMA is making positive noises about promoting mitigation, suggesting strongly that it is [...]

The Changing Face of Emergency Management Education By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Whenever the subject of preparing emergency managers for the future a couple of familiar refrains are sounded. Here are some of them: Who is teaching? What is being learned? Recently more actual emergency managers are becoming adjunct faculty, in some cases while they are still working in the discipline; others, recently retired possess a wealth of practical information as well as "book learnin" to convey. This is positive. For too long even professional associations sometimes deferred to academicians with limited or very narrow expertise in our [...]

Earmarks: Love ‘Them, Hate ‘Them By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed The President recently raised the prospect of "bringing back earmarks" as a legitimate negotiating tool. Reform-minded persons in both parties view earmarks as "deals" that often undermine the allocation of resources based on merit and importance to the common good. Once an accepted practice in Congress, it is now largely out of favor. The National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) has steadfastly opposed the practice of using earmarks to allocate resources in our discipline. Earmarks tend to pit states and their elected representatives against one another, thereby undermining the [...]

On Compromise Versus Being Compromised By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed A willingness to compromise is an essential component of our democracy, and such “deals” often facilitate mutual understanding and respect for the other side’s point of view. Present day ideological politics reflects the belief that “compromise” is a sign of moral deficiency. Anyone meeting someone who is equally principled on the “other” side of an issue somewhere in the middle is viewed as a “sellout”. Words like “unforgivable” are used like political whips to chastise the supposed “weakness” of the compromisers’ commitment to the “cause” - whatever that [...]

Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later… By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed My late father used to have a saying in my youth, often invoked on my way out the door for a date: “If you want to dance, you have to pay the fiddler!” I knew exactly what he was conveying. That reminder applies as well to national emergency management in specific, and our national discourse in general with respect to preparedness, mitigation and recovery planning. Elected officials would do well to face the music concerning investing in proactive emergency management. For example, this state’s emergency management [...]

Thoughts on Harvey, Irma, Maria and, YES, Cascadia! - By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Disasters bring consequences, both immediate and long term. Yet they also provide opportunities to address obvious hazards, so that they do not repeat themselves time and again. And such events can provide reminders to policy and decision makers even when their jurisdictions are far removed from the location of the disaster. The recent hurricane disasters have created consequences for many years that may or may not be effectively confronted as the long recovery cycle gets underway. The challenge for Texas will be how much [...]