Existentialism & Emergency Management

The Philosophy of Emergency Management

There are moments in this work when the world feels still, yet everything has changed.
You stand in the quiet, the air thick with uncertainty, and you realize that every plan you wrote, every checklist you built, was just a map of a world that no longer exists. In that silence, you face what philosophers have wrestled with for centuries, the question of existence, meaning, and choice.

Existentialism isn’t an abstract concept for those who live through disaster or crisis; it’s a reality. It’s the moment you decide whether to open the EOC or hold, issue an evacuation order, or wait. It’s the weight of freedom, the burden of leadership, and the quiet courage it takes to act when there is no guarantee that your decision will be right.

Jean-Paul Sartre said we are condemned to be free. Søren Kierkegaard called it the dizziness of possibility. Viktor Frankl found meaning not in the absence of suffering, but in our response to it. These aren’t just philosophical ideas; they are the foundation of what it means to lead in uncertainty, to serve amid chaos, and to find purpose when the world seems to have lost its own.

Below the fold, we’ll explore how existentialism shapes our profession, how freedom, responsibility, and meaning intersect in the life of an emergency manager- and why understanding our own “why” might be the most powerful preparedness tool we have.