The field of Emergency management in is in a phase of rapid change. Local government emergency management programs are under pressures to evolve in many aspects to adapt to the evolving operational environment and rethink approaches. Climate is changing with more extreme weather impacts, water quality and quantity concerns, and more places contending with the health effects of exposure to wildfire smoke. While a large focus is on climate, there is also the concern of cyber security and the introduction of AI – a realm where the benefits, threats and consequences are not completely understood. This is challenging how the field of emergency management is understood and its traditional frameworks.
This leads into the development of modernized emergency management – building out concepts beyond traditional incident management, a better understanding of pre-planning for recovery, expanding the partners involved in emergency management and how to integrate and coordinate effectively. There are core areas where Emergency Management is meeting new challenges in traditional processes namely plans, risk assessments, training and exercises and continuity of operations.
- Emergency Management Plans are reviewed and updated but the framework and concept of emergency management is evolving, impacting how plans traditionally address hazards and planning. Communities are adapting by developing Climate Adaptation Plans as an example that puts a future lens on the risks and challenges we face. The challenge is reviewing plans to make sure they address emerging needs which may need a more frequent review, but also questioning if what they capture and how emergency programs organize and operate are aligned to modernized understanding and new concepts of operation across all phases of emergency management.
- Hazard identification and risk assessments have traditionally been assessed as a capture of current risk informed by past knowledge and data on frequency and impact, and present mitigation and vulnerabilities. The pace of evolution of hazards and our understanding of them needs a shift of lens from past to present to include the future because the future is this year or this season. If we are not looking to what we know is coming and preparing for it in plans, training, exercising and public education, the current risk lens may be the downfall that leads to a lack of preparedness and less effective response and recovery. Hazard identification and risk assessments are only as useful as they are relevant, usable and measurable in a way that can be acted on. The challenge is rethinking the traditional approach and assessing how we understand and prepare for emerging and evolving hazards.
- This affects what we train and exercise for. If a season of scattered days of extreme heat based on the trend to date is the lens used to plan, train and exercise, then any thought put to staffing in response via EOCs and – when informed data shows a progressive increase in the coming years – is already behind. This is not just the very visible and immediate impact events like wildfires and floods but the slow creep hazards – the hazards that build over time, perhaps years before a visible trend and impact is recognized. Extreme heat is one hazard that became a trend, not a one-off occasional anomaly, and the impact begins to reflect in hospital statistics. Que the rise of clean air centres with wildfires. Exercises are an opportunity to present emerging challenges and address gaps before impact. Using modernized approaches to assess and understand hazards and risks, and incorporating this into training and exercises will enhance preparedness levels.
- Pressures on business continuity are a central challenge to addressing emerging risks. Extreme weather calls for increased cooling and warming centre hours with increasing demands on staff and volunteers. Cyber security and the introduction of AI puts more demands on staff and the resilience of critical infrastructure and continuity of services. Creativity in staffing, processes and understanding cascading impacts is an opportunity and a challenge for an increasingly demanding and complex risk environment.
Adapting to challenges and modernizing approaches to emergency management requires a culture shift. Management and leadership need to understand current and future operating environments, and have buy-in to support this change. Language needs to change from if something happens to when something happens. That small change in language can change thought patterns and spark action over complacency. And our lens needs to change from past and present to future thinking. Modernizing requires a thought to the future with a penchant for change management.
Where there are challenges there are opportunities. Harnessing the momentum of change is leading local government emergency management programs to adapt to new environments, and this is leading to exciting innovations and new approaches to building emergency management programs.
Emergency management programs are evolving to include more community-based engagement by recruiting and harnessing the power of local volunteers to address community specific needs. Climate adaptation plans and programs are rethinking how staff are mobilized, how business continuity processes can be more resilient, giving more attention to recovery pre-planning, and engaging the public in active input and involvement through community or resilience hubs.
The partners engaged in emergency management is expanding as hazards evolve. Communities can and do create more opportunities to engage with partners, bringing people together in different forums to understand changing demands, roles and responsibilities, and refine the way groups work together. This includes engaging with and involving indigenous communities in the mechanism we call emergency management for a more wholistic approach that incorporates indigenous knowledge.
The world we live in is reflected in how local emergency management programs are modernizing. The environment emergency management professionals work in is very different from even 5 years ago. This is calling for innovative thinking and approaches. Pressing the quintessential red button is an analogy typically feared or approached with caution. But in conversations around evolving emergency management it behooves the profession to harness innovation, press the red button and see what happens – great things can come from it.
