I appreciate the point of this graphic and I do not want to in anyway minimize the horrific number of COVID deaths however... we have got to talk about where y’all pull death toll numbers from and how yall choose which events to include... 🤦🏼‍♀️👀
Okay, real quick because this is a learning opportunity.

Comparing death tolls between war, terrorism, pandemics, and acute disaster/ catastrophes is wildly problematic but let’s say you want to do that, fine but there are some things to be aware of…
First, it is notoriously difficult (if not impossible) to get accurate death tolls for these large-scale events. I wrote about some of the issues here (this is all like x10 for events that are now 100 years old, but sure) disaster-ology.com/home/2018/6/4/…
Here’s an example: The Galveston death toll is estimated to be between 6,000 and 12,000. The 8,000 number comes from this research which, again, fine but also not exactly conclusive: galvestonhistorycenter.org/digitized-coll…
The most glaring omission on this list is, um, the 1918 pandemic…
I couldn’t find a daily breakdown and I suspect one doesn’t exist because, again, death tolls are difficult to figure out. However, the CDC says 195,000 Americans died of influenza during October 1918.

You can do your own math there…
cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-r…
Hurricane Maria is another pretty glaring omission. Again, complicated death toll and you can argue about technicalities related to the word “day” but also… come the hell on.

The Okeechobee hurricane of 1928 could also make this list depending on which death toll you use.
We are trying to get better at this, btw. One thing that came out of the horrific process of establishing the death toll after Hurricane Maria was this report:
(There seem to be a few war-related events missing from here like D Day but that's not my area of expertise so I'll skip that.)
Look, using history as a way to understand a current crisis is a natural thing to do. (I’ve done it!) But, you should also be careful about the context of that data. Comparing one disaster to another can lead down some bad paths. Erasure is a huge issue.

What matters most right now is that WAY too many people have died of COVID largely because of the approach government (specifically the white house and republican governors) has taken to “managing” the pandemic. This did not have to happen.
I — MSNBC, wyd??

To be fair this is, in fact, a list of “major deadly events”.

I don’t have the audio for this graphic so idk the full context but.... 🥴
Look, I don't have super high expectations for a viral graphic that some random person made on the internet but this one I'm mad about.

Truly, even if you're just picking some major deadly events how do you not put Maria on there...the constant erasure is just constant & unreal.
One more thing and then I stop (sorry). Since SanFran 1906 is on here. Let me just point out this is the perfect example of disputed death tolls. The official total was around 450 and was revised on the *100 year anniversary* to 3,000 which many still believe is an underestimate.

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More from @SamLMontano

9 Dec
IAEM released some recommendations for the first 100 days of the Biden administration related to emergency management.

#EMGTwitter

iaem.org/Portals/25/doc…
"The President-Elect should announce his nominee for FEMA Administrator before the end of this year."

IAEM has strong "hurry the hell up" energy.
Not all heroes wear capes, some heroes use capital letters to emphasize their point.
Read 7 tweets
8 Dec
The Maine Climate Council released it's four-year plan for climate action in Maine.

"It might be easier to put off climate action until
calmer times. But Maine can’t wait. Maine shouldn’t wait. And Maine won’t wait."

maine.gov/future/sites/m…
Emergency Management was included as one of the working groups so on that alone Maine is leaps and bounds ahead of some other places.
Like, hi.

This is a 🔥 co-chair list for a community resilience planning, emergency management, and public health working group.

You absolutely love to see it.
Read 9 tweets
16 Nov
Oh, I'm fine. Just having a near daily meltdown over the lack of integration between public health and emergency management research.
Sry to my colleagues who specialize in bridging the two. Whew. Y'all have your work cut out for you!
Truly a constant back and forth of "well the emergency management literature leads me to believe we should do X but the public health literature apparently says Y."

All the other disciplines showing up with their input:
Read 5 tweets
11 Nov
Hello everyone!

Hitting play in just a few minutes!

Tweet along with #DATM

I’m an assistant professor in the emergency management program at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. A bunch of my Intro to Emergency Management students will be joining us tonight as well!
"Things aren't as bad as they could be" is very close to my favorite saying "things can always get worse"! #DATM
Same energy. #DATM
Read 10 tweets
10 Nov
People keep sending me this and omg, no, I have no idea why Mainers are eating side salads.

My family ate pizza for Thanksgiving last year so... 🤷‍♀️
Honestly, this seems like the best explanation other than that this map is just made up.

Read 4 tweets
9 Nov
I've gotten a lot of questions this weekend about what I mean by “comprehensive emergency management reform” and also what Biden could immediately do for emergency management.

So, let me do a thread where I vaguely answer.
First, I use the term “comprehensive emergency management reform” to indicate that we need massive changes to how we approach mitigating, preparing, responding, & recovering from all types of disaster (climate-related or not). This means different things to different people.
My guiding light is that we need EM to be effective, efficient, & just. So any change that would move us towards that goal is something I would include here. I emphasize comprehensive bc we have a tendency to do piecemeal adjustments that don’t fully solve our problems.
Read 15 tweets

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