It was slow in coming, and likely to be short on funds and duration, but here are some details about the Trump declaration of an emergency re opioids. Trump to declare health emergency over opioids but no new funds to help.

The president’s announcement of an emergency over the opioid epidemic may be more symbolic, with no plan to assign money for state’s proposed measures

Donald Trump is to order his health secretary to declare a public health emergency in response to the US’s escalating opioid epidemic. But while the announcement that the president intends to “mobilise his entire administration” to combat the crisis will be seen as an important symbolic moment, there will be no new funds to deal with an epidemic claiming 100 lives or more a day.

America’s opioid crisis: how prescription drugs sparked a national trauma
Aggressive marketing of painkillers made from opium poppy led to a generation of addicts and The declaration, which follows a report from the president’s opioid commission recommending he proclaim an emergency, is for 90 days and can be renewed.

Update:  From the latest issue of Domestic Preparedness, this article: Implications of the Opioid Crisis During Disaster Response, by Dawn Thomas

From the Huffington Post, this article: Disaster Recovery That Solves Regional Problems. [URl was added.]

The Diva thinks this article is not correctly titled. She would title it Disaster Recovery That Could Solve Regional Problems. To assume the many problems listed in the article will be tackled during recovery is quite optimistic at the present time.

Note that GAO is a Congressional agency and does not have the same restrictions that executive branch employees have — such as the recent muzzling of EPA scientists.

New GAO report: Congressional Auditor Urges Action to Address Climate Change

Fires, floods and hurricanes are already costing the federal government tens of billions of dollars a year and climate change will drive those costs ever higher in coming years, a new federal study warns.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s auditing arm, urges the Trump administration to take climate change risks seriously and begin formulating a response.

One more aspect of disaster response and recovery that is suffering from federal neglect and budget cutbacks: Post-hurricane cleanup work could kill more workers than storms themselves.

The two hurricanes that battered Texas and Florida left 200 people dead but neglect of health and safety among mainly day laborers could exact a great toll
A man shovels seagrass from the entrance of his mobile home in the wake of Hurricane Irma at Tavenier Key, Florida.

The Politics of Crisis Management” by Arjen Boin, Paul ‘t Hart, Eric Stern, and Bengt Sundelius. 2017 (2^nd edition); Cambridge University Press.

Reviewed by Greg Jones.

This is the second edition of this book, produced by a multinational scholarly team.  The authors note openly in their introduction that a lot has occurred since the first (2006) edition was released.  They are unabashedly trying to keep up and they succeed admirably.

Their “model” (the scholarly go-to mechanism to explain and understand a complex environment) is straightforward, useful, and remarkably jargon – free.  Delineated into five “critical strategic leadership tasks”, the book’s model structure is well – suited for stimulating thoughtful reflection in segments.  Busy emergency management professionals can readily take these ideas aboard in the half – hour – per – evening time gaps that are all their duties may allow.

The authors describe the pressure with which governing leaders and councils must contend in a crisis.  Their efforts are the essence of “politics”.  (“Politics”, for our purposes here, is the building of consensus and resources to enact policy and achieve objectives.)  In the moments – to – weeks after the crisis event, management, leadership, confidence, communications and compassion are at a vital premium.  The display or absence of these qualities is the running public evaluation of emergency management competence.

Community trust hinges and fluctuates upon that evaluation.  The more catastrophic the event, the narrower the margin for the political leadership to earn and, at least temporarily, maintain that trust.  Boin and his team describe clearly how political councils can all too rapidly squander their margin for effective decision making and quickly find themselves beset by another crisis: the necessity to re-establish public confidence.  This in addition to trying to manage the original, actual event response.

The authors are performing an important service with their writing.  They are both expanding and elevating the thought space for the emergency and disaster management community.

The “expanding” occurs when they push outward from specific event types.  The subject being explored here is “all hazards” and “all origins”.  They assert that common features exist and drive how today’s societies react to any serious, large – scale emergency.

The “elevating” in their writing is not only about government jurisdictions.  They suggest that all events have political dimensions above the incident site and that those developments matter.  Long – term consequences (hopefully improvements) emerge from the post – event, intensely political conversations.

Whatever your emergency management discipline, and whether your political leader is a mayor, governor, or president, you’ll recognize the dynamics described in this book, and it’s insights will help you, help them manage bad events better.

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Gregg Jones is CEO of the global crisis management consultancy Strategic Applications, LLC, and lectures on crisis and emergency management at Georgetown University. He is currently researching the impact of volunteers in humanitarian emergencies. More of his writing is at http://theagilestrategist.blogspot.com