Disaster Tough Podcast

On our typical day of recording, we spent our time in New York City, supporting another webinar on The Readiness Lab- EM Speaks. They interviewed Pete Gaynor and Craig Fugate. We’re adding Brock Long to the conversation for a 3 dose FEMA Admin experience. Happy Thanksgiving!

Conducting a business impact analysis, understanding the Global Supply-chain, and working in concert with technologies is an absolute necessity for the emergency manager of tomorrow. Amazon is a behemoth in the supply chain world and Andrew helps run their IT systems from the perspective of business continuity. He shares his thoughts on supply chain, data science, and how the pandemic has impacted...

Andrew Donawa has worked in local programs in the Carolinas, Nebraska, and most recently Iowa. He is an excellent resource on building emergency management programs and leading with an eye towards disaster risk reduction. Andrew builds disaster tough communities through leadership, training, working with stakeholders, and addressing the whole community.

Jessica Kindig comes from Indiana’s Department of Homeland Security & Jeremy Swartz is the FEMA FIT lead assigned to Indiana. They work together as State and Federal partners to provide training. In this episode, we talk about past exercises in Indiana, such as a long-term power outage caused by an EMP and talk about the need to include stakeholders in emergency management and coordination.

The complexity of earthquake planning takes a wholistic approach because earthquakes can impact the full spectrum of emergency management practice (life, property, and continuity of operations). FEMA earthquake experts from Region’s X, IX, and VIII talk about what they are doing to plan for (and mitigate) these events. This is truly a roundtable discussion and a great example of emergency manageme...

“Traditional emergency management is dead!” Utilizing notes from the NATO SEP presentation, here are five (5) areas the emergency manager of the future will do: 1. Create living plans that organize blue sky and gray sky operations 2. Work closely with stakeholders 3. Utilize technologies to predict and reduce disaster impacts 4. Mitigate, Mitigate, Mitigate- Before, during, and after the disaster...

Asher currently serves as the Emergency Preparedness Manager for the City of Atlanta’s Mayor’s Office of Emergency Preparedness. On this week’s episode, Asher discusses preparing major cities for all types of hazards and major events. He delves into the nuances of emergency preparedness at the local level. He also highlights the importance of leading through serving others first. Through his insig...

We welcome Ashley Lauria-Golden back to the show to discuss current happenings at Doberman EMG and life as a newly minted “emergency momager.” She shares her perspective on local emergency planning, and provides insight for those in the plan update process. From her time as a paramedic to serving in both local and state level emergency management roles, Ashley has experience working in the tactica...

9/11 Ground Zero Reflections We welcome USAR expert Joe Hernandez back to the Disaster_Tough_Podcast for a special episode in honor of the 20th anniversary of 9/11. In the wake of the attacks, Joe and his USAR team were deployed to Ground Zero. Episode airs on all major podcast platforms.

This week provides an update on emergency management actions in Doberman, from the perspective of networking and disaster response coordination. If you want examples of who to network in emergency management, this is the show for you! We also want to thank all of those emergency managers who collaborate with us to help others in crisis. Emergency managers who coordinate and collaborate get the job...

The Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) created the National Strike Team - 3 sets of emergency managers staged across the US to act in times of catastrophe. FEMA took on these teams and called them the National Incident Management Assistance Team (N-IMAT). Tim Britt is the Operations Section Chief on the Red team (formally known as N-IMAT West). Host John Scardena served with Tim...

Disaster Zone is hosted by Eric Holdeman, an emergency manager with over 30 years of experience at the federal, state and local levels of government. Disaster Zone is a podcast that focuses on all facets of disasters; the before, during and after of events that are increasingly impacting communities around the world.

The National Capitol Region is an interlocking complex web of jurisdictional boundaries and priorities. Success comes when emergency managers are able to identify who they role players are in their regional perspective of disaster management. Andy John is an expert practitioner at identifying and working with regional partners to find success through the Disaster Lifecycle. On this episode we disc...

Expert emergency manager, Patrick McGinn serves as the Regional Disaster Services Director at The Salvation Army for all of Northern California and Nevada. He talks about his response experiences and shares lessons learned on emergency training exercises. Patrick also served the elite National Incident Management Assistance Team (N-IMAT West) for FEMA with our host, John Scardena. Patrick is truly...

Kevin Coleman is an experienced Federal Response Official with years of experience and countless deployments to large-scale disasters. During the COVID-19 Federal Response, he worked on a joint agency taskforce to recommend and build federal capabilities around the county. In his day-to-day job, Kevin is working to improve the qualification process for FEMA's staff, including the approach and styl...

The Miami Surfside Building Collapse Incident required local, state, and federal assets deployed as well as a complex system to support responders, family and friends of those missing, and potential survivors. This was an urban search and rescue operation with support across the emergency support functions. Our host was invited and instructed at a USAR conference in May, many of the participants w...

⛑ Operations are currently underway in Miami, FL. due to the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South Condo. Only a few weeks ago, Joe and his company, Disaster Medical Solutions hosted a medical urban search and rescue certification conference in Orlando. Several of the students & instructors are based out of Miami. Joe walks us through actions they are taking, provide advice on next st...

Chief Bryan Davis was called to respond to the active shooter in progress at the Pulse Nightclub Shooting. Unlike other active shooter incidents, there was no question - this catastrophe was a terrorist attack. An attack on all Americans by a coward shooter who took hostages, remained on site for hours, and even called news stations. It was an active shooter like we haven't seen before. Chief Davi...

Chief Walt Lewis serves on the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Florida Task Force 4 team and operates as a District Chief for Orlando Fire. Chief Lewis has been able to successfully combine forces with his emergency management counter-parts, looking at the fire perspective and coordinating other stakeholders of the disaster lifecycle. In this episode we talk about leadership, firefighting and the c...

In this week's episode, tactical meets strategic. We talk about the use of small drones (sUAS) to support emergency services response operations, and the benefits, as well as after actions, of real-world use cases. We also explore the future of emergency managers, first responders, and humanitarians in this increasingly popular field and what you can do right now to get your own program off the gr...

In the world of COVID-19 and beyond, it's time to look at innovative solutions that overcome traditional disaster norms. One of those is a double-hitter by addressing food as emotional care for survivors, as well as, saving small local restaurants during times of crisis. Small restaurants are particularly vulnerable to disasters. Between supply chain rout interruptions lack of business from the lo...

Vaccination sites, supply-chains, and innovation - Joe Dellamura returns to the Disaster Tough Podcast to discuss the complexities, successes, and lessons learned happening in real-time as FEMA seeks to support States in a mass COVID-19 vaccination mission. Joe is a logistics chief at FEMA Headquarters, previously assigned as White House Liaison during the testing mission. Joe provides strategic l...

FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor is a trailblazer and highly accomplished. He oversaw FEMA’s first Pandemic response, the most active hurricane season in U.S. History, and the most aggressive infrastructure program to date. Pete Gaynor has an amazing insight into setting the standard, increasing the capacity of emergency management across the field. Pete shares lessons learned of the SARS-COV-2 (COV...

Climate Risk Adaptation, population centers shifting towards the Coast, and financial insecurity are just some of the issues that mitigation officers must address in their work. Jack Krolikowski, Deputy State Mitigation Officer (or The Deputy SHMO) for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency talks to us about the importance of mitigation on this week’s episode.

We are calling Lee Dorey the George Washington of EM Leadership because of his amazing skill to lead in high stress environments. Lee has been in a Chief in almost every aspect of emergency management and response, he talks to us about his experiences, the great people he has worked with, and provides advice to emergency managers that will increase their influence, build a successful emergency man...