Your article was interesting to read. In my experience, which is still growing, whenever state of federal assets come in to aid the local government, they are usually roadblocked because the local agencies have a chip on their shoulders. So state or federal assets are in place and wanting to help, but local officials either won't communicate or actively undermine the efforts. The local populace sees this confusion and usually end up blaming the outside agencies for the problems created by their own local ones. So while we teach and try and practice "all disasters are local", then assets respond when requested, the local agencies are usually the ones not playing well with others.
I guess we have different experiences. I do not find local agencies and officials undermining response, recovery, or other activities. What I do frequently see is confusion on who does what, to and for whom, and when.
Broad generalizations are not helpful, in my opinion. Such as "the local agencies are usually the ones not playing well with others" and "The local populace sees this confusion and usually end up blaming the outside agencies for the problems created by their own local ones."
Have I seen this... sure. Is it typically about power and politics? Is it widespread? In my experience rarely.
To me, this discussion should be more about "how to make it better". We've all seen cases where integration and collaboration were lacking... now, what are we going to do about it? We know disconnects exist - what are we doing to better integrate efforts, and better serve the ultimate customer - those individuals, businesses and governments we see on perhaps the worst day of their lives.
I agree that we need to find ways to make it better. I don't believe I provided a broad generalization. I stated that "In my experience", so other may have not run into this. Others, such as yourself, have different experiences with local agency responses.
Finding out what each person's experience is, combining those, and looking for the common denominator is just one way to find out how we can make it better as an EM community. There are other ways as well, but without putting practical knowledge into the theoretical space means we are teaching methods that are disconnected from reality. Differing conversations about our experiences, or lessons learned, is one of the ways to put that experience into teaching.
Your article was interesting to read. In my experience, which is still growing, whenever state of federal assets come in to aid the local government, they are usually roadblocked because the local agencies have a chip on their shoulders. So state or federal assets are in place and wanting to help, but local officials either won't communicate or actively undermine the efforts. The local populace sees this confusion and usually end up blaming the outside agencies for the problems created by their own local ones. So while we teach and try and practice "all disasters are local", then assets respond when requested, the local agencies are usually the ones not playing well with others.
I guess we have different experiences. I do not find local agencies and officials undermining response, recovery, or other activities. What I do frequently see is confusion on who does what, to and for whom, and when.
Broad generalizations are not helpful, in my opinion. Such as "the local agencies are usually the ones not playing well with others" and "The local populace sees this confusion and usually end up blaming the outside agencies for the problems created by their own local ones."
Have I seen this... sure. Is it typically about power and politics? Is it widespread? In my experience rarely.
To me, this discussion should be more about "how to make it better". We've all seen cases where integration and collaboration were lacking... now, what are we going to do about it? We know disconnects exist - what are we doing to better integrate efforts, and better serve the ultimate customer - those individuals, businesses and governments we see on perhaps the worst day of their lives.
I agree that we need to find ways to make it better. I don't believe I provided a broad generalization. I stated that "In my experience", so other may have not run into this. Others, such as yourself, have different experiences with local agency responses.
Finding out what each person's experience is, combining those, and looking for the common denominator is just one way to find out how we can make it better as an EM community. There are other ways as well, but without putting practical knowledge into the theoretical space means we are teaching methods that are disconnected from reality. Differing conversations about our experiences, or lessons learned, is one of the ways to put that experience into teaching.