Canton on Emergency Management

Emergency Management Solutions: September 2022

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Featured Articles

Is an Economic Crisis an Emergency Management Issue?

    by Lucien G. Canton

NIMS Change – Information and Communications Technology Branch

    by Timothy "Tim" Riecker

How Much Pain Does It Take Before You Care About Crisis Prevention?

    by Erik Bernstein

Is an Economic Crisis an Emergency Management Issue?

During the last recession, a colleague of mine in a neighboring county proposed that his office become involved in planning for the economic impact of the recession on his community. He received considerable pushback not only from his elected officials but especially from a good part of our local emergency management community. The consensus was that since this did not address disaster response, it was not an emergency management issue.

I received similar pushback when my office became involved in a potential garbage strike in San Francisco. I had been asked to provide maps to the mayor’s staff who were planning for the strike and then invited to help select possible collection sites because of my local knowledge. It soon became evident that the planners were faced with a problem in assessing the sites because of the many agencies involved. I suggested they form multi-agency teams and pointed out that this was something our office had considerable experience in doing. Within a couple of hours, our office had created and staged several such teams using our emergency plan. The pushback again came from emergency managers who felt a garbage strike was not an emergency management issue.

This goes back to an issue we have yet to fully resolve in the emergency management community, “What is emergency management?” Emergency managers of my generation frequently came to the profession as a second career. We tend to be comfortable dealing with disaster response and hierarchical organizations and view our roles as primarily response oriented. This is one of the reasons the introduction of the comprehensive emergency management model with its emphasis on mitigation and recovery planning was a hard sell and still has implementation problems. But emergency management is not static and is continually evolving, so maybe it’s time to recognize that we have responsibilities beyond just responding to a major disaster.

If we are truly committed to all-hazards planning, we need to be cognizant of anything that has the potential to harm the communities we serve. I wrote recently of the need to for emergency managers, particularly those in senior positions, to understand political economics. This becomes even more critical as we enter another economic downturn.

While an economic recession may not in itself seem like an emergency management issue, it increases a community’s vulnerability and anything that increases vulnerability should concern emergency managers. People with limited resources are not able to prepare for disaster by stockpiling emergency supplies nor do they have disposable income to afford insurance or to perform repairs to damaged structures. We can also expect to see an increase in the homeless population as people lose jobs and homes, which will place increased demand on shelter and feeding operations following a disaster. There is also the possibility of increased crime and the potential for civil disturbance.

The impact of a recession goes beyond just increased vulnerability of the local population; it will also have a direct impact on our ability to respond. High unemployment and home foreclosures mean a reduced tax base which will result in budget cuts. When a community is struggling to fund essential services, the logical choice is cut contingency services, such as emergency management planning, training, and exercises.

While emergency managers may have a very limited role in dealing with an economic crisis, we need to at least be aware of the issues and proposed response being formulated by elected officials. More importantly, we need to consider the potential impact of such a crisis on our ability to prepare and respond to disaster and to plan for increased vulnerability and reduced resources. Most of all, we need to acknowledge that if we are truly dedicated to all-hazards planning, anything that has a negative impact on the communities we serve is indeed an “emergency management issue”.

Emergency Management Solutions - August 2022

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Featured Articles

Is It Time to Rethink The Emergency Operations Center

    by Lucien Canton

Legislative Advocacy in Emergency Management

    by Timothy Riecker

What is Crisis Management and Why Do We Need A Plan?

    by Erik Bernstein