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Practitioner Comments re FEMA

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This is a first for this website, but the Diva wants to share the opinions and concerns of a sample of people who have made emergency management a career and find the present situation re FEMA perilous. Readers are invited to share their experience; comments will be kept confidential.

(1) From the Diva: I have worked in EM in many capacities since FEMA was created in 1979 – as a researcher, practitioner, consultant, conference participant, and writer/editor of 6 books. Currently I am very concerned with the lack of experience and attitude toward EM shown by the two appointees to the position of FEMA Administrator. A huge amount of knowledge and experience in EM has been lost in the past year.

(2) From a person retired from service in a big city emergency management agency:

“I feel the same way. Decades worth of dedication, hard work, years of training at EMI, certifications, IAEM Certification Levels all for nothing. All the detailed comprehensive emergency management plans and Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plans are worthless. I am no longer relevant as well. The destroyers are in charge of the asylum. I wonder what these geniuses will do when there is a catastrophic national disaster that destroys sections of several states that cross multiple jurisdictional borders. Who then owns the recovery?

I do hope there is a national repository that is archiving the documentation so that it will not be lost because we cannot afford to start all over again reinventing the wheel. Eventually they will be gone so we need to be ready to pick up the pieces.”

(3) From a person recently let go from a high level FEMA job:

“Succession planning is a continual, structured process of identifying and preparing employees for future work performance, which is essential for mission and operational success. An emphasis on professional development to promote succession planning and foster a learning culture has been lacking at FEMA. Effective succession planning is premised on careful monitoring of actual and projected attrition and the effectiveness of retention programs, which focus on retaining employees in key positions, such as field team, branch, and division leaders.

Although the Nov 2024 Strategic Foresight Final Report (AKA the 2050 strategic foresight initiative) identified a number of themes to enhance knowledge transfer and enable the agency to engage in more informed, intentional, and strategic decision-making in the face of uncertainty, the bureaucratic lens has hindered future efforts. At a time when budgetary restraints and human capital management issues within the federal government grow,  qualified and motivated leaders proactively depart to seek roles in the private and public sectors. Well-conceptualized training for managers, supervisors, subject matter experts, and potential successors is needed to address the unique challenges of assisting communities in becoming resilient. It will take years to disseminate key institutional knowledge and strengthen emergency service personnel.

Guest Post on Effects of H. Melissa in Jamaica

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Observations/Comments on Hurricane Melissa (October 28, 2025) by Judy Kruger

Numerous storms have directly impacted Jamaica over the past 20 years, but none as strong as Hurricane Melissa. On the ground, operations are being managed by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management in Kingston, Jamaica (https://kingstonma.gov/189/Kingston-Emergency-Management-Agency-KEM), which instituted mandatory evacuation orders for several communities along the southern coast on October 27, 2025, before the storm made landfall. Hurricane Melissa, with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, is one of the most powerful storms to hit Jamaica in the island’s recorded history.

Anticipating Hurricane Melissa becoming a large-scale hurricane, many agencies have pre-staged relief supplies in Jamaica. The Red Cross societies in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic deployed volunteers, opened shelters, and carried out rescues and evacuations across the Caribbean Islands ahead of the storm’s arrival. According to the Jamaica Observer, 972 people were registered in shelters across the island (https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/10/27/eyeonmelissa-972-people-registered-shelters-across-jamaica-mckenzie/).

As the Category 5 storm makes landfall, regional efforts are gearing up from the U.N. International Organization for Migration (Barbados-based) to dispatch solar lamps, blankets, tents, and generators. Non-profits such as Operation Airdrop are coordinating private aircraft to deliver supplies as soon as conditions permit. The Red Cross has pre-positioned relief supplies to support directly impacted communities and families, and Operation Blessing (a Virginia Beach-based global response team) is staging nearby to distribute aid (water purifiers, hygiene kits, and other essentials) in Jamaica. Other nonprofits will follow to provide emergency food, water, medical supplies, and emotional support to those in crisis.

In July 2024, Hurricane Berly made landfall in the southern part of Jamaica as a Category 5 storm with winds of 140-160 mph. Reported damage occurred to telecommunications, infrastructure (roads), housing, and buildings, causing losses of about $200M (https://reliefweb.int/report/jamaica/hurricane-beryl-jamaica-situation-report-no1-9-july-2024). Access to clean water, sanitation, and electricity was a concern for many weeks following the storm, given long-standing flood waters that could lead to waterborne and vector-borne diseases. The other worry is for the coastal parts of the island, which experienced significant damage from Berly, and have not fully recovered. Storm surge over 13 feet high causes catastrophic destruction in low-lying coastal areas and widespread erosion. The powerful waves along the coastline have swept away many homes, businesses, agricultural land, and wildlife.

Shelter-in-place advisories are extended overnight, given that the US National Hurricane Center predicts an additional 6-12 inches of rain throughout the night, making it unsafe to travel through flood waters. It is a dangerous environment, given that many residents are without power due to downed trees and power lines. Even a fast-moving storm like Hurricane Melissa can take days, or even over a week, for 13 feet of storm surge to recede, making it difficult for the country to recover quickly in the coming weeks. Food aid, farming equipment parts, and other resources will be needed to support lost crops.

Although hurricane season in the Caribbean officially ends on November 30, storms are less frequent in late October. This late-season hurricane is highly unusual given its size; however, let’s not forget the impact Beryl made. As the eye of the storm path moves towards Cuba and the Bahamas, it could remain a major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale (https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/wmo-says-hurricane-melissa-will-be-jamaicas-worst-storm-this-century-2025-10-28/), making recovery a challenge for several island nations. The magnitude of this wind and rain event across several mountainous island nations could lead to life-threatening flash flooding, landslides, and damage to roads and bridges along the Southwestern coast.

Over time, as the magnitude of hurricane-strength storms reaching Category 4 or 5 strength is growing in the Caribbean (https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-11/), community efforts are needed to connect residents and visitors with emergency services. As more agencies mobilize on the ground to support locally executed and managed recovery, the struggle is just beginning for the people of Jamaica and the wider Caribbean area. It will take time for regional disaster risk management organizations to help communities rebuild and fully recover in the wake of Hurricane Melissa.

Author: Judy Kruger, Ph.D.[jkruger@emory.edu; 404-386-3029]
Adjunct Associate Professor|Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. 1518 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA, 30322 | CNR 7040Z

Review of Book on Resilience

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Invited book review from Island Press of Ten Years of Transformative Thinking.. Review by John Plodinec, independent scholar.

Once again, Claire has asked me to review the latest in the Resilience Matters series – this one subtitled Ten Years of Transformative Thinking. The ebook, again edited by Laurie Mazur, consists of 61 short essays (plus Mazur’s Introduction, A Decade of Progress Toward a Fairer, Greener, and More Resilient Future), all of which have appeared as opinion pieces in various periodicals and in previous versions of the Resilience matters series (I was moved to wonder why there was no new material in this compilation). The ebook is free, and can be downloaded here.

The Introductory essay by Laurie Mazur sets the tone for much of the rest of the book:

“…resilience is not about “bouncing back” to the disastrous status quo. Today, the destabilized climate poses unparalleled risks to human health, safety, and economic well-being. And in a world of rising inequality, those risks are not equally shared: low-income communities and people of color are hit first and worst by climate change impacts. So, “bouncing back” to a status quo that increases greenhouse gases and widens inequality will only magnify human suffering found its combination of polemic and practicality particularly indicative of the schizophrenic nature of the book. Many of the included essays are unabashedly “progressive” – with all of the breathless “sky is falling” fear-mongering that that entails. However, there are some worthwhile nuggets, just as there have been in previous compilations. In fact, many of the essays are mixtures of both the practical and polemic.

The first paper in the first Section (Climate Adaptation and Resilience) – We Can’t Have Resilience Without Justice is typical. The author rightfully points out the loss of trust inflicting our communities and the importance of rebuilding trust if we are to reinvigorate our cities. I violently agree that rebuilding trust in both our institutions and ourselves is absolutely essential if we are to become more resilient. But then the author blames the loss of trust on slavery and structural racism, as if only people of color have lost trust in our institutions. The author offers some bland bromides (investing in education, urban infrastructure and affordable housing) that have absolutely nothing to do with overcoming our lack of trust. He goes on “in a resilient society, both opportunity and risk are shared by all.” This is preciously Polly Anna-ish. We spend more of our educational dollars on kids in our inner cities – and achieve … almost nothing. The sorry statistics on the lack of basic math and reading proficiency are almost terrifying. While the second paper also is highly polemic, it has a useful middle that lays out the characteristics of resilient systems and communities rather well:

  • · Diverse components unlikely to be subject to a single point failure.
  • · Redundant means of carrying out basic functions.
  • · Modular systems that can function even if disconnected from the rest of the community.
  • · Tight communication connections, that provide ample warning of adverse change.
  • · Social and cultural capital that encourages and facilitates formation of tight connections across the community.
  • · Cultural capital that gives people the confidence to take action even in the face of disaster.
  • · The ability to innovate – recognizing when the usual response is not sufficient to deal with the unusual, and then formulating a novel course of action.
  • I must also point out that I found some genuine nuggets amidst the activism. There’s a nice little piece by Shade Shutters and Mazur (Interdependence and its Discontents) that highlights the vulnerabilities associated with interdependencies (As an aside, Shutters has done important work on recovery from economic disasters that deserves wider attention.). Danielle Arigoni points out a growing problem for emergency planners – Older People Suffer the Most in Climate Disasters. We Need to Plan and Prepare for That. Laurie Mazur has a useful piece on how fortifying our homes can ease the homeowners’ insurance crisis. How Farmers Can Survive Tariffs – though written in 2018 – is a timely reminder of the value of diversification even in farming.
  • I found many of the essays in the last section – Transportation, Infrastructure,& Built Environment – the most useful. Among the best were:
  • If Roads Are Gridlocked in Rush Hour, What Happens When Disaster Strikes?
  • Parks: Not Just for Picnics
  • Fix It and They Will Come, a neat little piece about a UU church in NJ reinventing itself.
  • Why “Middle Neighborhoods” Are the Sweet Spot Between the City and the Suburbs
  • If You Build It, We Will Thrive
  • Is It Time to Reimagine the American Schoolyard?
  • We Can’t Build Our Way to Net Zero. I had not seen this one before. It focuses on renovation and re-use of previously built structures.

As with the previous editions, this one is filled with pumped up Progressive rhetoric and special pleading. But it also has some pieces focused on real problems and novel solutions. While I can’t recommend this ebook, I certainly can’t condemn it, either. However, if you’ve read the previous editions there’s really no need to get this one.

More Background on Current FEMA Dilemma

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From The Hill: Trump wants to make natural disaster victims a state problem
With weather catastrophes becoming more common in the United States these days, communities have counted on two facts.

“First, the federal government has their backs. When state and local resources are insufficient for disaster response and recovery, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) arrives to help. That has been true since President Jimmy Carter created the agency in 1979.

Second, FEMA’s help will be frustrating. Federal assistance will never arrive quickly enough, last long enough, or provide enough resources for people who are traumatized, homeless, without possessions, uninsured and uprooted from schools, neighborhoods and social networks. FEMA’s job is often thankless, but it’s always needed.

However, disaster victims may not be able to count on FEMA much longer. President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have indicated they want the agency to “go away.” More recently, Noem said she will “reorient” the agency. Trump has appointed her to co-chair a FEMA Review Council to “streamline” FEMA so it “delivers rapid, efficient, and mission-focused relief to Americans in need.”

But the administration is not waiting; Trump dismissed the acting head of FEMA last week. He and Noem have pulled billions of dollars out of the agency’s programs to help communities become more disaster resilient, even though the World Economic Forum says effective adaptation strategies can deliver an investment return of $43 per dollar spent. The government says it will no longer track the growing number and cost of big weather disasters.

Trump has also decimated climate science and forecasting at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last month he dismissed 400 volunteer scientists who analyze and periodically report on anticipated climate impacts in each U.S. region.

Everyone agrees that FEMA, and federal disaster programs generally, need reform. More than 60 disaster programs are scattered across more than 30 federal entities. In recent years, stakeholders and expert organizations have flooded the zone with ideas to improve the government’s disaster responses. The Review Council can benefit from recommendations by the Association of State Floodplain Managers, Harvard Law School, Pew Charitable Trusts, Brookings, the Government Accountability Office, FEMA’s planners and others.”

Should States Shoulder Most of Responsibility for Disasters?

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From the NY Times: Trump Says States Should Manage Disasters. Former FEMA Leaders Agree. “I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” the president said. Federal emergency managers from both parties have made the same argument.

“In an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, the president criticized the performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly,” he said. “I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems.”

Mr. Trump continued, “The FEMA is getting in the way of everything.” Referring to Oklahoma, he said: “If they get hit with a tornado or something, let Oklahoma fix it. You don’t need — and then the federal government can help them out with the money.”

Project 2025, the blueprint for a Republican administration that was produced by the Heritage Foundation, calls for flipping the financial burden of response to small disasters so that 75 percent is carried by states and the rest by the federal government. Russell Vought, the chief architect of Project 2025, is Mr. Trump’s pick to run the Office of Management and Budget, where he would significantly shape the federal budget.”

Review of New Report on Resilience

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Once again the Diva has asked John Plodinec (Resource Technolgies)   to review a new report on the topic of resilience. His report follows:

Recently, Claire asked me to look at a new report Resilience in Action. This report comes from the National Academy of Public Administration and IBM’s Center for the Business of Government. While the authors purport to be “preparing governments for future shocks,” government is rather tangential. The four case studies in the report are actually about governance: making and implementing decisions. The report highlights different ways that digital technologies can facilitate decision-making in a multi-partner environment.

Each case study is presented in a user-friendly format:

· The challenge – the potential shock and the players;

· The response – the playbook and the technology behind it;

· Lessons learned and critical response factors; and,

· What’s next. This section is a pleasant surprise – too often, these sorts of efforts seem to be “sound and fury signifying nothing.” For all of the efforts, there are a significant follow-ons identified.

In the first case study, a Norwegian team used the Strategyfinder software platform to bring together a diverse group of medical and health care professionals, and local government officials. The focus was on better managing the threats posed by the mutations of the coronavirus. The software allowed the group to gather remotely to identify risks and develop strategies to manage them. In other words, the software helped the team develop a better response than they could individually.

The second case study focused on the city of Nashville’s energy security. Nashville is vulnerable to blackouts, particularly during cold weather. A team consisting of Nashville, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Nashville Electric Service (NES), and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) used Synthetic Environment Twin to develop a model of the city and its energy usage. The model allowed the team to determine how the city’s power grid and system would respond to various outage scenarios. Most importantly, it allowed the team to take a fine-grained look at the impacts of extreme weather: down to the level of individual homes. Here the digital technology enabled the team to gain a better understanding of the cascade of consequences if power were lost.

The third case study (perhaps the most interesting) showed how digital technology helped Moldova to manage the flood of immigrants from Ukraine. In the wake of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, ~100,000 Ukrainians sought refuge in Moldova. As we in the US have seen with our own flood of immigrants, it is difficult to provide essential services to those strangers in a strange land. The Moldovans developed a software platform that provided credentials for each refugee, and served as an information hub for them to learn how to access essential services. The software platform thus became an essential part of the Modovan response to the refugee crisis.

In the fourth case study, the pandemic confronted the Dutch and German healthcare systems with a difficult challenge. In normal times, the Dutch (with limited ICU beds) transferred patients across the border to Germany when necessary. The pandemic transformed an occasional trickle into a deluge. Essential information for each patient could not be reliably delivered, let alone used, on an ad hoc basis. The Dutch Ministry of Health; the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany directed the University Hospital Münster to develop a digital platform that hospitals near the border could use to facilitate patient transfer. This was later expanded to several other European countries