What Is Emergency Management?

When asked by others to define emergency management, I've always had a phrase at the ready: "Emergency management is the art of putting the right people in the right place at the right time with the right tools for the right mission." I enjoy that answer. It sounds smart enough that people think I know what I'm talking about while also being vague enough that I'm not actually putting a definition on it. Because that's the problem. Depending on who you ask, there really isn't a single definition that defines our field.

Ask any accountant or lawyer what they do and you'll get something that's generally in the same ballpark. Police and fire? Almost self-explanatory. A doctor may have a specific specialty but they're still a doctor. So what about an emergency manager? The truth is that the definition of our profession changes quite a bit from person to person.

Sure, we'll get the quips and eloquent phrases like the one I use. We've all heard the "Jack of All Trades", "Wizard", "Problem Solver", and the "Whatever my boss needs me to be" remarks. However, if you dig down beyond those lines you'll find that our experiences are largely very different. Almost every organization needs an emergency manager. Someone who they turn to when things go wrong or there's a considerable threat to people and property. Do they all need the same thing though? Most definitely not.

Consider a hospital. An emergency within a hospital setting might be sudden loss of power to the building. The EM is now coordinating personnel and equipment to ensure life safety and the continuity of operations. Now consider that loss of power from the perspective of the emergency manager for the city that this hospital is located in. Is that an emergency to them? What actions are they taking? If the city is large enough and has multiple hospitals, were they even notified?

Now consider two counties of relatively same size and population. Surely they have the same focus, right? Maybe...maybe not. What if one county has its own fire department complete with hazardous materials and technical rescue teams while the other uses a conglomerate of municipal and volunteer departments that don't have those capabilities? Will the mission for those emergency management agencies be the same? Now consider that one has a higher hazard profile because it's in a coastal area and prone to flooding while the other hasn't seen a natural disaster in over 50 years. Same focus? I'd guess not.

Or think about this...does your emergency management agency do the same thing that FEMA does? The lay person would probably think that would be the case. FEMA is surely the standard bearer in what constitutes emergency management, right? Most of you probably laughed out loud at that thought.

Here's the point. Emergency management isn't a truly defined field. It's relative to the needs of the jurisdiction or organization. We have five phases of emergency management that can all be their own profession. There are five mission areas and 32 core capabilities, all of which require their own expertise. That's just in the official definitions handed down from FEMA!

Are we first responders? Sure, can be. Office workers? If that's the case. Do we wear 5.11 pants and tactical polos? If that's suitable to our work. Suits or shirt and tie? Quite possibly. Do we write plans? Potentially. Clean up hazmat spills? If that's what we're tasked with. Do we do recovery work? If that's in the job description. Do we manage mitigation projects? Could be.

How about during a disaster, what roles do we fill? Advisor? Liaison? EOC Manager? Public Information Officer? Planning Section Chief? Logistics Section Chief? Incident Commander? I've done all of those in my career across different events and agencies.

I've had the benefit of working positions that have afforded me a lot of opportunity and flexibility in my emergency management career. I've written emergency plans, developed and managed projects, taught classes, managed hazmat cleanup efforts, led jurisdictions through hurricanes, and written policies that became local ordinance.

What my experience has taught me is that an emergency manager's role in their organization depends entirely upon the needs of the organization itself. That's why it's so difficult to define what our profession is. It changes, sometimes entirely, from one place to the next.

So the summary of this, in my estimation, comes down to this: Perhaps emergency management isn't something that can be singularly defined. Instead of trying to decide what it is or isn't, we should be focusing our efforts on learning more about the experiences of others. Maybe the point of an emergency manager is that every organization needs someone that is constantly learning and developing new skills so that they can stay ahead of the unknown.