WFTND Blog Information

An emergency manager trying to make a difference.

The name of the blog comes from a conversation with my daughter, where she told me that I was always looking to help people be prepared for the inevitable emergencies in life.

I started this blog as a place to assemble all the information that I was getting every day and to share my thoughts and ideas on emergency management.

I had no idea how much of the blog would wind up being what's in the news. While it does not take a lot to add a blog entry, I just did not realize how much of my day was involved with simply keeping up with what's going on. All of the posts, whether what's in the news or comments or just a piece of information, have a purpose; to get us thinking, to get us talking, and to make things better - in other words, to make a difference.

Hopefully this blog will save you some time and energy, or help you in some other way. If you would like to see something, please let me know.

Posting an article does not imply that I agree with the comments in the article. In fact, in many case, I do not agree, but feel that the comments should be part of the discussion. All opinions are welcome. I only ask that you remain considerate and professional of other opinions.

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Favorite Quotes for the Emergency Manager

  • “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • “Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • “Failing to plan is planning to fail”
  • “Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.” Denis Waitley
  • "Station 51, KMG365."
  • “One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” Arnold H. Glasgow
  • “An ostrich with its head in the sand is just as blind to opportunity as to disaster”
  • “The powers in charge keep us in a perpetual state of fear keep us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.” Douglas MacArthur
  • “My ideas have undergone a process of emergence by emergency. When they are needed badly enough, they are accepted.” Buckminster Fuller
  • “Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”
  • "If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, ..." Rudyard Kipling
  • "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." Aldous Huxley

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Lessons in the Elections for Emergency Management

I voted today, and from all indications, so did the vast majority of the rest of the country. No matter who you voted for, I hope you were able to vote. In Michigan, for example, the prediction is currently at 70%! The potentially record-breaking voter turnout shows, in part, that voter apathy was overcome.

How does that matter to emergency management?

First, it shows that apathy can be overcome. There is apathy in the public, the natural human instinct to ignore all the warnings, to tell yourself "it will never happen to me." I just finished reading "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why" by Amanda Ripley. (This is an excellent book, I highly recommend.) It helps explain why people think the way they do about personal emergency preparedness. Your local Joe Emergency Manager needs to understand how the political campaigns work (and don't work) and apply those lessons to areas such as public education on emergency management.

Second, it also has lessons for organizational education. There are many an emergency manager out there who has fought the battle with their leadership over the priotity of the emergency management program. (Free plug for EM Forum: Leadership Challenges in Emergency Management - A Moderated Panel Discussion is the topic of the day tomorrow at noon ET, go to www.emforum.org for more information.) How someone goes about getting elected has direct application to how an emergency manager gains support for their program.

Finally, it leads to the discussion of politics and the emergency manager. I would argue that a good emergency manager is apolitical, i.e., politically neutral. Of course politics affects us and how we do our job. The politics of the organization definitely affect the program. Some of the emergency management program goals could be aligned with a political viewpoint. Certainly we have our own political viewpoints. Still, you need to be politically neutral to be truly effective. After all, the point is to take care of ALL of the organization and ultimately ALL of the public.
To be clear, you need to be aware and engaged, and you need to deal with the politics, but the minute you align yourself with a political viewpoint, you have boxed yourself into a corner. (Check out Disaster Policy and Politics: Emergency Management and Homeland Security by Richard Sylves, University of Delaware for another viewpoint.)

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