Whither FEMA? Whither Emergency Management?

2025-06-24T17:13:59+00:00

Whither FEMA? Whither Emergency Management?   By Jim Mullen FEMA is about to experience a radical reassessment of its mission, or even its reason to exist.  Such a review is the prerogative of any incoming administration.  It would serve the nation best if the professional emergency management community, as politically and socially diverse as it is, were allowed to conduct a reasoned, professional review process to identify improvements.  But, couched in buzzwords like “efficiency” and “accountability” it is difficult to believe that anything resembling a reasoned, professional approach will be forthcoming. This proposed FEMA “review” builds on campaign-generated lies about FEMA’s [...]

Whither FEMA? Whither Emergency Management?2025-06-24T17:13:59+00:00

BUILDING EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT STAFF: A REFLECTION

2025-04-04T00:06:22+00:00

BUILDING EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT STAFF: A REFLECTION   By Jim Mullen By 2001, numerous national experts had cited Seattle’s emergency management team as one of the more creative and successful units in the country. A national conference invited me to present my concept of the ideal level of expertise, training and education for a municipal emergency management team. The question: How had Seattle’s staff been constructed? What combination of skills, education and experience were desirable? Diverging from other panelists’ focus on “professionalizing” of emergency management through degrees and certification programs, and an “accidental” emergency manager myself, it was an interesting opportunity [...]

BUILDING EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT STAFF: A REFLECTION2025-04-04T00:06:22+00:00

Now What?

2024-11-21T19:16:25+00:00

Now What? By Jim Mullen As climate change impacts and political challenges grow, local and state governments must focus on building resilience. This article highlights the critical role of emergency management in preparing for future disasters. The federal election is over. A new Administration will assume the reins on January 20. There will be concern that federal budget priorities may not be geared toward resolving FEMA’s annual funding shortfalls despite evidence that successive administrations (and Congress) have failed to adequately provide sufficient resources on an annual basis, even in the face of increasingly complex events. However, local and state governments [...]

Now What?2024-11-21T19:16:25+00:00

Interdependencies – November 2021

2021-11-09T21:14:53+00:00

Interdependencies by Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed The 1950’s health crisis was a crippling and killer disease, polio, that parents feared every time their children complained of headaches, tiredness, stomach pain, etc. Once developed, polio vaccines were quickly embraced, administered in schools; that health crisis was abated.  We depended on and trusted medical science to free us from polio. In that same era, Cold War science fiction movie scriptwriters - largely to avoid “Red Scare” condemnation promoted by conspiracy theorists of that day - created “otherworldly” threats, requiring that the nations of the world unite to “save the planet”  [...]

Interdependencies – November 20212021-11-09T21:14:53+00:00
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