I teach emergency management courses including Intro to Emergency Management, Vulnerable Populations in Disaster, and the Political and Legal Foundations of Emergency Management. Every semester I incorporate current disasters into the classroom and COVID-19 is obviously no exception. There is a lot of news flying at us all very fast. It’s nearly impossible to keep up. So, in an effort to help my students make connections between course work and the current pandemic I’ve begun to curate a weekly list of news articles for them to read. My focus is primarily on articles related specifically to emergency management given the subject of my courses.
I’ve decided to make these curated lists public because I suspect emergency management practitioners and others are also struggling to keep up with the rapidly unfolding response.
There are many more good articles out there raising important issues than I can read or include here but this is at least an attempt to narrow down what the key issues are as we move forward in this long-term response.
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First, I’d like to re-draw your attention to “COVID Calls”. This effort is hosted by disaster historian Dr. Scott Knowles and features a daily interview with a disaster researcher and other disaster experts. They are all excellent but I wanted to draw your attention to three calls in particular.
COVID Calls: Dr. Kathleen Tierney
Dr. Tierney is one of the foremost disaster scholars in the world. You’ve read her work in my classes – specifically her Congressional Testimony post-Katrina. I strongly encourage you to listen to the entire interview. She contextualizes this moment better than anyone else could.
I transcribed her opening quote because it reflects my assessment of the COVID response and is representative of other disaster researchers I’ve spoken with.
“This is the worst crisis response debacle I’ve seen in my career as a disaster researcher. The wheels have fallen off and everything it seems that can go wrong is going wrong. There was such a massive failure of foresight and a massive failure of execution and failure, frankly, to follow all of the planning philosophies and all of the plans and institutional arrangements that this country has been working on in emergency management for 50 years. I mean it’s astounding. The incompetence is astounding."
I know many of you have already recognized the challenges and failures in this response in the context of what you’ve learned in your emergency management courses and I would expect these issues become more clear as you continue your study in this area.
COVID Calls: Kathleen Bergin
Kathleen Bergin is a law professor teaching at Cornell Law. She specializes in disaster law. She has been providing invaluable context and explanations regarding the legality of actions taken, or not taken, by the federal government throughout this response. [Begins minute 23]
COVID Calls: Dr. Lori Peek
Dr. Peek is the director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She speaks about a range of topics in this call related to the COVID response and disaster research.
City Lab: For Cities, This is a Fiscal Disaster
We’ve talked in class about how local governments are themselves victims of disaster that must undertake their own response and recovery. They must also provide support, and ideally lead, the response and recovery of their community at the exact same time they themselves are losing resources. This creates a particularly challenging dynamic. From my perspective, this is the next major challenge for which there is currently no plan. This article was written by the Assistant City Manager for the City of Cincinnati.
I want to call the following quote to your attention as it highlights the multiple issues for emergency management. (You’ll note this article does not specifically mention emergency management – something that seems to be an oversight given the tasks listed largely fall within the purview of emergency management.)
“In addition to providing the immediate funding to maintain local government operations, the forthcoming “phase four” stimulus should invest in cities to make them more resilient when the next disaster hits, which it assuredly will. As Matthew Yglesias of Vox has written, one key to doing better preparedness post-Covid-19 is to prepare not just for a recurrence of this exact virus, but to look more widely at the range of external threats, including diseases and natural disasters. This includes not just novel and ongoing public health menaces like antibiotic-resistant bacteria or mosquitoes spreading northward due to changes in climate, but extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes like those that hit the Southeastern U.S. last week. Therefore, the next stimulus ought to include massive investments in local public health and public transit agencies; critical energy improvements, such as public renewable energy projects and energy storage for critical facilities; and upgrades to buildings and housing so that people are living in healthier, more affordable conditions.”
New York Times: Here’s How Coronavirus Could Raise Cities’ Risk for Climate Disasters
This is an excellent article taking a look at how the impacts of budget changes may take money away from hazard mitigation projects. This can affect our community’s safety in the long term as our risk increases largely related to climate change.
WLRN: Feds Seized Shipment of One Million Masks to Miami-Dade, Say Officials
There are stories coming out around the country (and have been for weeks) of communities having their PPE orders taken or canceled by the federal government. There is confusion about what exactly is happening and why, but I did want to include this article because it features the perspective of the county emergency manager in Miami-Dade.
Tampa Bay Times: Thousands of Florida businesses didn’t get emergency loans. But some got several.
There are a number of articles out there that have highlighted the particular challenges of businesses right now. This one looks at the shortcomings of emergency loans for businesses in Florida. Remember that FEMA has found 40-60% of small businesses never re-open post-disaster. If that statistic holds true related to COVID it would be catastrophic. Immediate and abundant loans and other types of aid to small business is critical.
Scalawag: For Black North Birmingham residents fighting toxic pollution, staying home isn’t safe
This interview with environmental activist Keisha Brown highlights some of the challenges of living through a pandemic in a community already managing toxic pollution.
NPR: What Happens If U.S. Reopens Too Fast? Documents Show Federal Coronavirus Projections
Finally, there are a number of different perspectives and approaches being taken by elected officials across the country in terms of determining a path forward for reopening. Many of those approaches go directly against the advice of public health and emergency management experts and stand to dramatically increase suffering. This article serves as a warning for what could happen if we “re-open” too soon.