The title stems from a conversation I had a couple of years ago with like-minded
Emergency Managers from around the world enrolled in the Emergency Management Academy.
An endeavor that had me read a large volume of emergency management books over
the course of a year, along with being involved in great conversations weekly with my fellow Fellows.
The gist of the conversation was appreciation of the people running the
disaster response and recovery. Not the first responders (who you should
thank) but the Emergency Management Team behind the scenes coordinating the
response, who almost never get thanked in a public way. So as you go into
your next disaster; regardless of whether it is a tornado, hurricane, quake or
mass shooting remember there is a man or woman behind the curtain. They
do everything from coordinating the response, to helping move things along in
the recovery phase. And if they did everything right your disaster
experience was probably better than it would have been without their daily
planning.
So search out the location of your local Emergency management office, bake
some cookies and deliver them to the EOC with your thanks. You will make some tired emergency managers
day, because cookies never suck.
Disasterdave
