I’ve been thinking about how in the mid-sixties (or so) “the public” became disillusioned with the civil defense preparedness efforts as their inadequacies in the face of the nuclear threat became so obvious. It seems to me something similar is occurring now.
The public is looking for information on how to be prepared and what emergency management has to offer is, frankly, little more than “tips and tricks” about writing down phone numbers, etc.
Someone working in a small EM agency with little staff, time, and authority probably can’t do much more than offer these suggestions — even when they know, as they often do, it’s not enough.
But this is where I’ve noticed I see public attitudes starting to shift. Regardless of why these are the recommendations, “the public” is starting to see them as laughable in their inadequacy to the types of chronic crises and catastrophic events that people are experiencing.
As risk increases and as individuals begin to experience more frequent/ severe disasters and I see people begin to see clearly the deep inadequacies of the traditional preparedness recommendations.
What’s frustrating is that disaster research has painted a much broader description of what individual (and community) preparedness looks like but since those answers are more complicated than “go buy stuff” almost no one wants to hear about it. I hope that changes.

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More from @SamLMontano

18 Feb
Hi.

COULD SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE US MONEY TO STUDY HOW CLIMATE CHANGE WILL IMPACT THE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM?

We don't even need that much money to do this!
ok. I know I'm screaming but I'm actually 100% serious.

@BillGates -- I hear you're into climate adaptation now. Great! Give us money!!
There is so little money being spent on disaster research and there's even less being spent specifically on *emergency management*.

I'm just completely out of ways of trying to explain why this is urgent research! Look around!!
Read 6 tweets
17 Feb
Among the many horrific things Rush Limbaugh did and said he was also a persistent disaster denialist.

It's a long list but in the past few years, he actively encouraged people not to follow hurricane evacuation orders (while evacuating himself). buzzfeednews.com/article/davidm…
He persistently lied about climate change and their relationship to disasters.

nytimes.com/2020/09/15/bus…
The Trump administration oversaw two failed catastrophic responses of which the death tolls are still being counted.

“Can you remember any natural disaster where the Trump administration is thought to have really blown it”

mediamatters.org/coronavirus-co…
Read 4 tweets
17 Feb
This is another disaster where the needs are so geographically widespread that my best advice on giving is to just pick a person/group/ organization and give them money.
My personal approach in a situation like this is to do the following:
1. Help anyone I know personally who needs help
2. Donate to any groups I've worked with before/ know they're effective
3. Local groups that serve marginalized people that haven't gotten many donations
I do usually recommend donating to groups that work on recovery rather than response. I actually feel differently in this situation specifically because of the pandemic. So this isn't a factor I'm considering right now.
Read 4 tweets
17 Feb
They're also not connecting this to broader issues with our approach to emergency management.

If you're new around here (hi, welcome) and here's a thread on how democrats (including Biden) love to ignore emergency management.
I often get comments about how my criticism of various democrats re: disasters is unfair because "at least they aren't Trump". 😅

Sure, democrats are not chucking paper towels at people but they also are not doing an effective job of meeting disaster-related needs.
What is happening right now is, unfortunately, a perfect example of why elected officials (national and local) need to explain the causes of disasters AND what they are going to do to prevent them in the future.
Read 12 tweets
17 Feb
A common genre of disaster tweet is someone making a snarky comment that blames disaster survivors for the disaster because of their state’s political affiliation.

A short thread.
This is a problem for several reasons but the big one is that generally the same communities that tend to be most impacted by disasters are the same ones that are most likely to be kept from voting.
I wrote about this a few months ago right before the election.

disasterology.substack.com/p/disasterolog… Image
Read 6 tweets
9 Dec 20
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

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