The Tempo Tempest Facing Emergency Management

Strong and valid arguments could be made for any individual risk or hazard as the single greatest threat facing global safety professionals.

Multiple cases might be put forward for climate change, the opioid epidemic, violent crime, whipsawing immigration patterns, malign foreign governments, a dysfunctional U.S. Congress, foreign terrorist organizations, or domestic violent extremists to be our single greatest challenge. Yet the greatest emerging problem facing homeland security and emergency management professionals is not any single challenge but rather the speed of emerging challenges.

Ultimately, it is the pace and tempo of these evolving and metastasizing challenges which represents the greatest strain on our national emergency management and homeland security enterprises. Rather than a single hazard emerging as the clear and present danger which must be addressed, it is rapidly emerging patterns of change which pose the greatest strain on the current structure.

Frequently magnifying these challenges is an obsolete warning network based on outdated predictive modeling. And as is often the case with societal challenges, neither governmental funding nor professional training and education are being optimized.

The challenge is, in essence, a more rapid evolution of threats than of mitigation. This disparity impacts organizations regardless of sector—private, public, or nonprofit. This same mismatch was cited by panelists in the recent Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) webinar held earlier this year. Rather than citing a single isolated issue or challenge that provided the most concern—particularly for professionals working in an all-hazards environment—panelists focused on the rapidly evolving threat landscape.

A live poll of nearly 200 emergency managers during the webinar revealed a wide range of emerging threats. “We have a portfolio of concerns,” said futurist and webinar participant Rebecca Ryan. “None of them is far more important than the others.”

Just a handful of concrete examples help to make this meta-challenge clearer:

• Due to climate change, both public-sector and private-sector entities are struggling to predict weather patterns which are evolving so quickly that they make formerly reliable models completely obsolete. As a result, extreme weather patterns are not only becoming more common, but forecasting is becoming more difficult. 
  
  
• Due to inconsistent reporting from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the FBI national-level crime data is seriously lacking in accuracy. As a result, we know violent crime and hate crime saw a resurgence in recent years, but more granular or actionable patterns are largely lacking.
  
  
• Due to a range of issues, including political expedience and intelligence failures, Bureau has failed to address the rapid re-emergence of domestic extremist groups—particularly Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVEs). A pair of recent analyses by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General and the FBI reached the same conclusions. 
  

As these examples readily display, it is not merely a lack of information that is hampering effective planning and mitigation efforts to address these challenges, but also outdated methodologies and datasets. Decision makers are therefore faced with obsolete information in an accelerating change environment—a two-headed monster which foretells a very challenging future indeed.

The pace of truly massive region-wide disasters is also increasing. The year 2023 set a record for disasters within the United States anticipated to have a cost exceeding $1 billion dollars, with 28 events reaching that ignominious marker. That topped 2020, which was the prior record-holder with 22 billion-dollar disasters. This catastrophic-level occurrence trend is not only worsening but accelerating.

Simply and bluntly, the U.S. federal government does not have the resources to effectively respond to the number of climate and weather disasters we are currently experiencing, much less to what is in our immediate future. Americans expect to be “made whole” after a hurricane, flood, or tornado outbreak, but that goal is now largely out of reach.

The pace of truly massive region-wide disasters is also increasing.

Equally concerning is a decisive lack of skilled people with the training and experience to manage large-scale crises. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that as of 2022 (the most recent year data is available for) there were only 11,800 professionals with the title emergency manager or emergency director in the entire United States. This translates to one emergency manager for every 28,800 American citizens. The largest professional organization in the world for these practitioners, the International Association of Emergency Managers, has merely 6,000 total members.

This miniscule workforce with enormous responsibilities is facing the same pressures as other fields. More tasks are being placed on equal or smaller numbers of emergency managers and homeland security professionals. Funding is flat or decreasing year over year. And divisive politics are a constant strain on current civil servants, as well as discouraging others from entering the field. These factors combine to place downward pressure on the number of qualified professionals available to prepare for and respond to large-scale incidents.

To thrive in decades to come, a true paradigm shift is required in our current collective mindset. Resources must be shifted to preparedness and mitigation, thus blunting and minimizing the fiscal and human impacts of disaster. Studies have repeatedly shown that for every $1 spent on mitigating hazards, $4 to $6 dollars are saved in direct response and recovery costs. Think of it as a downpayment for future generations, or as a national insurance policy on our critical infrastructure.

This new paradigm must be matched by new professionals in the fields of emergency management and homeland security, where we are facing a recruiting and promotion issue that is partially of our own making. Veteran managers must actively mentor upcoming talent and prioritize succession planning for their organizations. And we must collectively do a better job promoting the most rewarding aspects of the field—the meaningful work, the civic duty, the servant leadership, the camaraderie, and the ongoing commitment to future generations of Americans.

All is not gloom and doom, however, and there are some signs that society recognizes the importance of having robust crisis leadership. In fact, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Higher Education Program website lists 295 colleges and universities which currently offer degree programs in emergency management or closely aligned disciplines. ⁸ The vast majority of those institutions also offer programs in homeland security, or a combination of the two disciplines.

Recall that the homeland security enterprise has rapidly evolved before, driven by rapid shocks and emerging threats such as the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. The lasting outcome of today’s overarching challenge will depend on the enterprise’s ability to respond so again—rapidly and systemically. Successful adaptation will rely on recognizing the looming threat posed by rapid change to the status quo, and establishing effective information streams, mitigation measures, and personnel development to meet the challenge head on.

Thomas Henkey, CEM, is a professional emergency manager with two decades of cross-sector experience in disaster planning and response, critical infrastructure protection, and public safety.

© Thomas Henkey