Recognizing and mitigating against COVID-19 consequence management impacts in emergency management organizations

Abstract

Disasters should no longer be considered along a linear timeline, where response follows preparedness, recovery follows response, and mitigation follows recovery—even if those disaster cycle phases overlap. The spiral aspects of these disaster cycle phases require communities to be in the response phase at the same time as the recovery and also mitigation phases. Emergency management (EM) organizations should use COVID-19 as the basis for a new normal as to their own continuity of operations and government. Their current model for staffing and supporting incident management is not sustainable for a long-term pandemic.

The approach to any EM’s organizational response to COVID-19—and the “reset/restart” of any suspended internal actions and activities—should be consistently applied across the board through all missions, all lines of service, etc., and conducted along a standardized project-management approach, with S.M.A.R.T. goals assigned, tracked, and reported in summary and detail by utilizing a stalwart construct from emergency management through planning, organizing, equipping, training, and exercising. The EM organization’s role in their community, conducted through their people, products, and services—the tactical objectives and missions which that EM organization performs, will need to continue to adapt, not only for existing missions but also for new ones created by this pandemic as well.