Thank You All For One Year
It is incredible how time flies. When I sold my other venture in June of 2021, It was to expand the network and community we grew. The opportunity to do so would only happen after shedding the old and starting fresh. I was not 100% on how it would look. I was introduced to Substack because of a podcast and thought, why not give it a try?
I created our first newsletter in December of 2021 and have yet to look back.
So: happy anniversary, especially to those of you who have been here from the start.
Honestly, I had no idea what to expect when we started this adventure. It allowed me a creative outlet for my writing, and I invited a few others to contribute, and the community grew.
It amazed me that so many people were looking for a platform to be part of. It was so refreshing to find you all are eager to have positive, detail-oriented, curious, exploratory, and mutually respectful conversations about emergency management.
The excitement and pride of being part of this community are similar to how I see my students thrive and become emergency managers. I feel proud of what we’ve accomplished here. I know now that what we do is needed and good for the world. What I know is that our community members are doing great work and making a difference in the world every day, in both large and small ways.
I can tell you honestly that The Emergency Management Network has improved my life in that it has increased my confidence in our ability to stretch the limits of discourse and wrestle with tough questions, discuss difficult solutions and bring us gently back into the domain of mutual good faith. We do not need to tare anyone down and attack them personally. This is no small thing in a culture that sees everything as a zero-sum game.
I’m becoming more convinced that tone creates our communicative reality. Somehow, here, we were lucky enough to have stumbled upon and developed a particular tone – one that is, I think, more in tune with how people treat one another in the real world. It is, I’d say, a familial tone. It’s about respect and based on the somewhat radical notion that, as much as we know, we can always know more – know in a different flavor, or with more precision, or from a new angle – and that our fellow travelers here in Story Club are an excellent resource for providing this freshness.
What a wealth of lived experience you all have and, therefore, what a tremendous resource The Emergency Management Network is: these tens of thousands of minds, each working intensely in its modality, supercharged with the life it has lived, willing to take risks and be open with one another. It has been thrilling to watch all of this happening and to hear, from so many quarters, that Emergency Management Network has begun to get a certain reputation the EM Space.
So, I’m writing today to say thank you.
This post is just going out to you, our free subscribers – and so I’m also asking you, for next year, to consider making the leap and becoming paid subscribers.
For next year, behind the paywall, The team at the Emergency Management Network is planning more deep dives into the issues that we face; more drop-in visits from thought leaders, writers, and more conversations with the EMN team; we are planning to try to offer some insight on the creative process by making available early drafts of some of the videos and raw behind the seen conversations, and talking, with as much honesty and accuracy as we can, about how these leaders, think, write and make a difference.
Above and beyond all of that, who knows?
If you’re happy enough staying a free subscriber, that’s great, and you’ll continue to get our Sunday Weekly Wrap-Up posts, and in those, We will try to keep alerting you to what we’re doing the rest of the week. In any case, I am thrilled to have you here at whatever level of engagement is right for you. I do appreciate your support in keeping the Emergency Management Network running smoothly.
I’d also love to hear what you’d like us to do here. There are no limits. Have there been particular things we’ve done that have been helpful? The Emergency Management Network's goal is to contribute to your professional life positively – So please let me know what you’d like more of…
I’d also like to take this chance to acknowledge the incredible work of the excellent EMN team of Daniel Scott, Marc C. Baker, Kelly McKinney, Jon Fontane, Isamar Garcia, and Michael Prasad, who have all contributed to the success of The Emergency Management Network.
So thanks again for the support, the love, and the commitment to being a better you. This is a community and not about one person. It is about all of us, and together we will make a better world. And as always, Stay Safe, and Stay Hydrated.
Podcasts
The Todd DeVoe Show
Addressing the Challenges of Mass Care
Managing mass casualty or disaster incidents is challenging for any person or organization. Therefore, this paper identifies and describes common challenges to managing such situations, using case and lessons learned reports. It focuses on the sudden onset, man-made, or technologically caused mass casualty or disaster situations. Today we are talking with Vincent Aarts, who began his emergency response and management career in 2001 as a wildland firefighter. Vincent left local emergency management for his current position as lead planner and systems integrator with the Office of Resilience and Emergency Management (OREM) – part of the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS). The OREM serves as the Emergency Support Function 6 – Mass Care lead agency for the state of Oregon.
What To Read
Start With Why
A Book By Simon Sinek
Book Review By
Why is your (the organization’s) purpose, cause, or belief? Do you know why you do what you do? I believe those who join the emergency management profession (or any other first responder profession) are driven by a sense of service and a desire to be a force of good. Is this our why? Is it clear to you, to the community, to stakeholders, and to public officials why your organization exists? Are you inspired by the work that you do? And as a leader, how do you inspire others? It all starts with Why.
all disasters are local, until they aren't
By
"This is a wake-up call. People cannot depend solely on the Federal Emergency Management Agency…We all have to sit down and figure out how to collectively improve”— Brock Long
Today has a terrible significance for those of us in the disaster business. Nine years ago today, in the early morning hours of November 8th, 2013, the strongest storm ever recorded brought her fury to the low-lying shores of Leyte Island in the central Philippines. Sitting along the narrow mouth of the San Juanico Strait, Tacloban City was hit hardest. Super Typhoon Haiyan (known to all Filipinos as “Yolanda”), crushed it with two hundred mile per hour winds and twenty-foot waves.
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