Small businesses play an enormous role in U.S. success and we know that disasters threaten the already fragile existence of many. In this episode, I speak with Lucien Canton, a long-time leader and author in emergency management about the effects of disaster on business and how continuity planning can better ensure business survival.

How important is what you wear as an Emergency Manager and how do you know when to wear what? In this episode of the Complete EM Podcast, contributor Jeb Lacey of RS Network Consulting, and George Whitney, founder of Complete EM, have a little fun and get serious with this important topic.

Do you drive a government or company vehicle in the course of your duty as an Emergency Manager?  Do you take it home? Is it equipped with emergency lights and sirens? In this episode of the Complete EM Podcast, contributor Jeb Lacey of RS Network Consulting, and George Whitney, founder of Complete EM, have a little fun and get serious about the importance of knowing the responsibility and risk associated with take-home vehicle use.

The tougher part of natural disasters and the better part of human nature will mean we will probably always have unaffiliated volunteer organizations helping emergency managers with disaster response and recovery. In this episode, we explore what Humanity Road has been doing for almost 10 years to help when disasters strike, and how partnerships with emergency management agencies can make response and recovery a little easier.

What could you do if you had 5-seconds notice of a large, impending earthquake? A new technology called ShakeAlert now makes some advance warning of earthquakes possible. So, as emergency managers, we have to ask a few questions. What responsibility do we have to help a community leverage such a technology? What can we expect our community members to accomplish with some advance warning? What's the best way to communicate potentially life-saving messages?

Most emergency managers think of drought as a slow-onset, slow-burn type of disaster that jurisdictions simply need to ride-out with conservation. Some jurisdictions haven't been so lucky. In this episode, an emergency manager who directed critical response operations for several consecutive years walks us through the process he used from official recognition of the emergency to maintaining long-term response and recovery operations, something he calls "responsicovery."

Public alert and warning has again become an area of priority for emergency managers. Getting advance notice of imminent danger and valuable instructions to the public when they need it most - before a disaster can do irreparable harm - is arguably one of the most important things an emergency manager can accomplish.  In this episode, we speak with one of the people at FEMA charged with engineering adequate capability for local, state and federal government officials to do just that. Photo...

What does emergency messaging have to do with Y2K, social science, communications interoperability and a free market economy? In this second of two episodes with a pioneer in emergency messaging, we drive closer to defining the current problem with emergency messaging and some probable solutions.   

In light of recent emergency messaging failures, it's time to ask...what's happening? Do local and state jurisdictions indeed have a duty to warn the public of emergency? If so, how are emergency managers impacted or otherwise bound to this duty? What can they do to make alert and warning more effective? In this and a subsequent episode, we explore these and other questions with a world-renowned expert in emergency messaging.

In light of recent emergency messaging failures, it's time to ask...what's happening? Do local and state jurisdictions indeed have a duty to warn the public of emergency? If so, how are emergency managers impacted or otherwise bound to this duty? What can they do to make alert and warning more effective? In this and a subsequent episode, we explore these and other questions with a world-renowned expert in emergency messaging.

Emergency managers have a lot to think about and, fortunately, have a large network of partners with which to consider risk, disaster needs and effective means of service delivery. One of those partners is the local food bank and their associated food pantries. Each day they're working to reduce hunger and food insecurity in communities across the US. In this episode, we speak with the director of disaster services for a nationwide network of food banks to hear more about what they do and...

Many emergency managers agree programs need to invest more in public preparedness, but deciding how to make the best investments is tough. Designing a program that takes into account large, almost infinitely diverse populations seems impossible using a traditional approach. In this episode, we hear from an emergency manager and enthusiastic researcher who wants to change the way we engage the public to better prepare for disaster.

If someone were to survey emergency managers and ask "what do emergency managers do?", chances are the answers would still vary quite a bit, but that's been changing. Since 2003, the Emergency Management Accreditation Program has been very explicit about what emergency management programs must complete to be accredited. In this episode, Barb Graff, Director of Seattle's Office of Emergency Management and EMAP Commissioner explains the standard, the process of accreditation and how the...

Most emergency managers understand that disaster recovery involves a lot more than SBA and FEMA assistance, yet few local programs have developed a recovery plan. Indeed, planning for recovery requires a lot of consideration, but there's tools and an approach that can greatly simplify the overall effort. In this episode, we talk about recovery with a former FEMA Associate Administrator charged with developing a national strategy for disaster recovery.

Anyone remember the 2000 energy crisis in California? Like too many unexpected events that created great impacts, the lessons learned and passed along to emergency managers have been few and far between. In this episode, a person at the center of a multi-billion-dollar response helps us recall how the event happened and how a very small group of emergency managers made a huge difference in peoples' lives.

Few organizations know more about operational dependency than utilities. Electricity is needed to operate water, wastewater, communication, transportation and other criticial infrastructure. In turn, electricity is dependent on natural gas, coal, solar, wind or hydro electric plants. When utilities suffer interruptions, outages can affect manufacturing, the food supply, hospital surgery rooms and the overall quality of life in a community. Public safety agencies depend on close ties with...

It's difficult to dispute that Team Rubicon (TR) has joined the disaster relief stage with surprising success and momentum. Then again, employing veterans and others who share a desire to serve in places where people desperately need help, well, that is a good idea. In just seven years, the organization has grown from just a few volunteers to over 70,000. When I caught up with Corey Eide, the Deputy Director for Capabilities at TR, the timing was perfect to hear about the pivot the...

Utilities maintain some of the most critical infrastructure on the planet and a lot of work goes into making utilities stable, secure and resilient. In this epsiode, we speak with the manager of Southern California Edison's Emergency Operations Center to learn more about what one of the largest utilties in the U.S. does to achieve emergency management success.

If there's anything worse than seeing serious, unmet needs following disaster, it's seeing people and resources that can meet those needs, but having no efficient way to employ them. In this episode, we speak with the Volunteer Network Program Director at North Coast Opportunities, a very active community-based organization in Northern California that works, in part, with counties and cities to ensure the needs of disaster victims are matched to all practical offers of assistance.

With all that emergency managers must do to get their organizations ready for disaster, how much time can and should be invested in training?  Yuri Graves, the emergency manager for the City of Henderson, NV, explains how much training plays a role in his program and how use of a learning management system makes for easier, more effective investments in training.

In September 2017, the National Flood Insurance Program received a 10-week reprieve from a $25 billion loan payment. The program is, quite literally, under water.  In this episode, we speak with the CEO of another large, public, catastrophic loss insurer - the California Earthquake Authority - to hear how actuarial-based rates, only policy-holder financing and effective messaging is preparing millions of California homeowners for the next big earthquake.

"Lobbying" may have become a dirty word, but legislative advocacy is nothing less than essential for emergency managers who rely on federal grants to operate local and state emergency management programs.  In this episode, the Director of Government Relations for IAEM breaks down the business of legislative advocacy.

In January 2017, Lake Oroville operated like thousands of other flood control and water storage facilities in the US. Surrounding public safety agencies enjoyed good relations.  A county EOP and dam EAP existed. Telephone trees were regularly tested. Occasional table-tops took place. All seemed good... then the atypical happened. In this episode of the Complete EM Podcast, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea walks us through the Lake Oroville Spillway Crisis and how mission focus,...

What allows an EM program to enjoy good public relations? Joe Dougherty, the Public Information Officer for Utah's Division of Emergency Management says it has a lot to do with finding a relatable and trustworthy PIO, and earnestly integrating that person in program assessment and improvement, long before information needs to be shared with the public.