the cavalry

I have spent the week at the FEMA Higher Education Conference at the National Emergency Management Institute. While emergency management and the four phases of disaster (mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery) are a part of what we teach and research at the IGCR, it is not everything. It was clear that the emergency management field is focus on management, tactics, and coordination. All are important aspects of disaster reduction. Yet, aspects of sustainable planning, strategizing, and integrated vulnerability reduction are not top agenda items.....especially within Department of Homeland Security's dictates of a heavy focus on terrorism.

Being somewhat on the margins of the conference focus is always a fascinating position. This time I was struck (again) with the underlying oxymoron present in the FEMA mandate. On the one hand, the average resident understands FEMA's role as the knight on a white stallion, the cavalry, the agency that is going to sweep in and save them from a catastrophic event. Of course, Katrina greatly tarnished this image, but the expectation remains. On the other hand, one of FEMA's missions is to promote disaster preparedness. This promoting of preparedness requires a host of risk education and risk communication activities, many of which require FEMA to say that there is risk, that people are unsafe, and that people need to DO SOMETHING to prepared themselves. The implicit and unintended message underneath it all is, "We're the cavalry, but we can't really do our job, so you need to prepare yourself."

Its a challenging position for emergency managers to work within.