From historic catastrophes to today’s challenges, crises pose significant public threats. By returning to the basics and prioritizing deliberate preparation, organizational leaders can build greater resilience, enhance performance, and lead effectively when it matters most.
A dual-world tabletop exercise simulating an electromagnetic pulse event in Chicopee, Massachusetts, revealed startling discrepancies in outcomes between the city’s current preparedness and a moderate-preparedness simulation.
Disaster wargaming may significantly change the future of tabletop exercises in emergency management and homeland security. Long used effectively to win and prevent wars throughout history, wargaming offers more realistic and engaging scenarios for emergency managers to prepare for real-world disasters.
As the U.S. contemplates withdrawing its membership from the World Health Organization, there are potential impacts on both local and global emergency preparedness and response to consider. Emergency managers should evaluate their current programs to determine ramifications in their local sectors.
High-profile business leaders like UnitedHealthcare’s murdered CEO have been at an elevated risk of targeted violence in the past several years. Although such attacks on corporate executives and other public figures are rare, they are targeted. In response, many corporations have increased personal protection for executives, but the permanence of these measures is undetermined. Lesser-known but important security measures can mitigate risks to business leaders and other public figures.
The emergence of powerful artificial intelligence tools generates excitement and apprehension, raising profound questions about the future of emergency response. By adopting the joint cognitive systems paradigm, emergency managers are offered a new way of thinking about their work in this environment.
As part of the Texas Division of Emergency Management’s Hurricane Helene Incident Support Task Force, Emergency Management Coordinator Jarod Rosson experienced firsthand what it is like to respond to a disaster when all ground-based forms of communication are offline.
The December 2024 edition of the Domestic Preparedness Journal provides insight into the intersection of AI and emergency preparedness. With their exponentially increasing speed of development, existing, emerging, and not-yet-created technologies must all be part of the planning process in 2025 and beyond.
As demonstrated by hurricanes Helene and Milton, jurisdictions unaccustomed to compounding incidents can bolster their readiness to simultaneously respond and recover by proactively examining and preparing for unique challenges posed by such a scenario.
Nonmedical concerns such as security and safety, unaccompanied minors, and governmental relations can adversely impact a hospital when responding to a mass-casualty incident. Failure to plan for these issues, including consequence management, could risk life and safety.