Disaster Zone – Details, episodes & analysis

I don’t know if you have noticed, but things are changing fast. Change is happening at every level of our society, in government, business and culture. Nothing is immune from the extent of change that is occurring.

In this podcast we explore the topic of forecasting the future in order to better prepare ourselves and our organizations. You will find this topic engaging and thought provoking.

The podcast guest is Donna Dupont the Founder and Chief Strategist for Purple Compass, as well as an award-winning designer and futurist who helps organizations build their future literacy skills to navigate change in today’s complex and uncertain world. She brings skills and insights developed over 25 years working with leaders in healthcare, public safety, defense, and security. Her unique style bridges systems thinking with strategic foresight to support organizational decision-making and advancing actions to mitigate future risk, enhance preparedness and adaptive capacity to disruptive events, and leverage opportunities for change, innovation and transformation. She is a recipient of seven government awards at the provincial and federal level for outstanding achievement, excellence, and partner relations in policy and strategic planning.

Her unique style bridges systems thinking with strategic foresight to understand patterns and the potential evolution over time. She works with both quantitative and qualitative data, and designs processes to ensure confidence with insights and knowledge theories generated. Donna’s professional portfolio of projects have advanced insights on topics such as climate change, international development, environmental security, civil security/emergency preparedness, climate-risk and infrastructure, health and human security, space sector and national defense.

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The modern media world we live in today is nothing like we have experienced to date. Legacy media is fading and we have an entire new suite of information channels sharing good and often time distorted information. Add to that, we now have “machines” that can generate the information without any human interface. This podcast addresses these challenges and some solutions all organizations, public and private need to avail themselves of.

The podcast guest is Molly Dwyer is the Director of Insights at PeakMetrics, a narrative intelligence company that empowers organizations to combat harmful online threats. In her role, Molly expands the realm-of-the-possible for PeakMetrics use cases to answer customer challenges in the public and private sectors. Molly brings a decade of experience working in the open-source intelligence start-up space. Previously, she built and directed the analysis team at Predata, now part of FiscalNote. Molly studied politics and Russian at Princeton University. Her passion for combatting mis/disinformation was emboldened by her years spent living in and traveling in Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

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Hot Mess Express: An emergency management leadership course focusing on response tactics during terrorist attacks. Hot Mess Express includes an immersive exercise during an intentional train derailment scenario. 

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Doberman Emergency Management Group provides subject matter experts in planning and training: www.dobermanemg.com

In this Disaster Zone Podcast we will be talking about the significant challenges New Zealand and Christchurch faced in the aftermath of their 2010-2011 Earthquakes. The podcast guest is Brent Winder is a native New Zealander. He has had multiple roles in leadership ranging from ten years in the New Zealand Navy, to positions with Queens Town Lakes District Council and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA).

He was a founding staff member responsible for operations in the Christchurch Central Business District (CBD) red zone and supporting the largest and most complex demolition project in New Zealand’s history. Additionally, he successfully managed widespread and large-scale demolition and land management – in a disaster recovery context. He has also led an expert recovery team to Kathmandu, Nepal post-2015 earthquakes, and he is a member of the deployable New Zealand Emergency Management Assistance Team (EMAT).

 Like many of us, he Played a regional role inthe Whole of Government emergency response in the COVID-19 Pandemic. In his current role he is lead emergency management for Christchurch City Council. You can contact him at Brenden.Winder@ccc.govt.nz

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Maryscott (Scotty) Greenwood is the CEO of the Canadian American Business Council  Greenwood also leads Crestview Strategy US where she serves as Partner and the Managing Director.  She is a former American diplomat to Canada and a frequent media commentator and public speaker. She also has her own   CANUSA STREET PODCAST In this podcast we explore how the political system in Canada is vastly different from that of the United States. In the second half of the program we look at what makes the US and Canadian relationship so unique and the many economic connections that can still be expanded upon even more in the future. During the podcast she mentions the website https://travellikeits2019.ca/ which is a way to advance the reopening of the border by getting the NEXUS program back up and fully functional.

This episode is sponsored by Bent Ear Solutions which offers comprehensive capabilities and deep industry knowledge necessary to help you solve the most complex issues of your organization. We advise public and private organizations on an all-inclusive approach to disaster preparedness that addresses governance, planning, operational procedures, technology implementation, training, and exercises in order to achieve a successful and sustainable program.Eric Holdeman is a professional emergency manager who is passionate about providing information that can help families, businesses & governments become better prepared for disasters of all types. Hear first hand expert insights from Eric on his Podcast, Blog & EricHoldeman.com.

Before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, there was Hurricane Andrew which made landfall in Dade County Florida on August 24, 1991—30 years ago. The hurricane caused catastrophic damages. In this podcast, Kate Hale, the then County Emergency Management Director shares that experience with us. This all happened a year after I started in emergency management. It was a huge event that impacted emergency management for years afterward. Listen and learn from a professional emergency manager who lived through that experience, sleeping on chairs at the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for weeks. She has tips all of us can use when it comes our turn to face the maelstrom of disaster. Hear what she has to say about disaster recovery and also being improvisational in the midst of a disaster.

This episode is sponsored by Unearth. Unearth’s emergency response software connects field responders and the command center, equipping teams with mobile tools for rapid damage assessments, real-time incident tracking, and seamless information sharing. Empower field teams where their work actually happens - reducing response times, optimizing resource management, and simplifying reporting with a dynamic, map-based field operations platform.Eric Holdeman is a professional emergency manager who is passionate about providing information that can help families, businesses & governments become better prepared for disasters of all types. Hear first hand expert insights from Eric on his Podcast, Blog & EricHoldeman.com.

Climate change is bringing heat, drought, and wildfires as significant hazards across the globe. In this podcast, Dr. Paula Scalingi, Executive Director of the Institute for Innovating Security and Resilience is interviewed about the increasing risks of climate fueled wildfires and their impact. Additionally, in the second half of the podcast we discuss how government and other organizations can work together to reduce the impacts of wildfires. There are several references mentioned during the podcast. One is Firewise which gives great tips for protecting individual homes. And, when someone does suffer a fire loss, there is The Red Guide to Recovery that is a great resource for individuals and families who have lost property from a wildfire. 

The Blue Cell is a by-design crisis and consequence management consulting firm with a primary focus on education and training for government at all levels, non governmental agencies and private sector entities engaged in incident and emergency management activities.Eric Holdeman is a professional emergency manager who is passionate about providing information that can help families, businesses & governments become better prepared for disasters of all types. Hear first hand expert insights from Eric on his Podcast, Blog & EricHoldeman.com.

Social media is a relatively new communications tool. However, today it dominates many aspects for how people communicate in their personal lives and is of increasing importance in business and government. In this podcast we will be exploring how social media is being used, or not used, by emergency managers, before, during and after a disaster. My guest today is Dr. Claire Connolly Knox with the University of Central Florida where she is an Associate Professor of Public Administration. As part of our discussions, we’ll be learning about the challenges and opportunities for emergency management to use social media. Here is link to an article on a study she worked on relating to disasters and social media When Hurricanes Strike, Social Media Can Save Lives  And, since I mentioned it when the topic of Hurricane Katrina came up, here is a link to the Washington Post Op-ed I had published at the time the levees failed in New Orleans, Destroying FEMA.

This episode is sponsored by Bent Ear Solutions which offers comprehensive capabilities and deep industry knowledge necessary to help you solve the most complex issues of your organization. We advise public and private organizations on an all-inclusive approach to disaster preparedness that addresses governance, planning, operational procedures, technology implementation, training, and exercises in order to achieve a successful and sustainable program.Eric Holdeman is a professional emergency manager who is passionate about providing information that can help families, businesses & governments become better prepared for disasters of all types. Hear first hand expert insights from Eric on his Podcast, Blog & EricHoldeman.com.

It is unfortunate that mass shootings continue to occur and that schools remain a target for unhinged gunmen. In this podcast Meg Cuttino is the guest. She was a former law enforcement officer and School Resource Officer (SRO), until she became the emergency management coordinator for the University of South Carolina’s regional campuses. Today she is an emergency management consultant with Hagerty Consulting. In this podcast we discuss what has changed about responding to school shootings since the 1999 Columbine High School Shooting and what can be done to prevent school shootings from physical security at schools to having more school counselors. The terrible tragedy that happened at Uvalde Texas is also discussed. 

Dynamis, a leading provider of information management software and security solutions, is a sponsor of this podcast.Eric Holdeman is a professional emergency manager who is passionate about providing information that can help families, businesses & governments become better prepared for disasters of all types. Hear first hand expert insights from Eric on his Podcast, Blog & EricHoldeman.com.

Oregon Emergency Management is undergoing a major transition from being a division of the Oregon National Guard to now being a Department of Emergency Management reporting directly to the Governor of Oregon. Andrew Phelps, Director of Oregon’s Office of Emergency Management is the guest for this podcast.  In it he details some of the key factors that made that transition happen and how the move will impact their ability to more effectively provide emergency management services. It should be noted that they have doubled the size of their workforce! This change in organizational placement happened on July 1, 2022. For a brief summary of that move see this Disaster Zone Blog Post: Oregon Emergency Management Moves Under the Governor We also discuss the relationship between Andrew Phelps and Mike Harryman, the Oregon State Resilience Officer. To learn more about that position see a previous Disaster Zone Podcast, Oregon State Resilience Officer where he was interviewed.

This episode is sponsored by Unearth. Unearth’s emergency response software connects field responders and the command center, equipping teams with mobile tools for rapid damage assessments, real-time incident tracking, and seamless information sharing. Empower field teams where their work actually happens - reducing response times, optimizing resource management, and simplifying reporting with a dynamic, map-based field operations platform.Eric Holdeman is a professional emergency manager who is passionate about providing information that can help families, businesses & governments become better prepared for disasters of all types. Hear first hand expert insights from Eric on his Podcast, Blog & EricHoldeman.com.

Dr. Jeff Stern is the Superintendent of the Emergency Management Institute (EMI), located at Emmitsburg Maryland. EMI is the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) center for the development and delivery of emergency management instructional curriculum that is delivered both in-person and remotely via technology. In this podcast we discuss the history of EMI and how it and the curriculum is constantly changing, just as our national threats have evolved over the years. Dr. Stern discusses the development of emergency management as a profession and how the training and education of the current and future workforce are his top priorities.
 
The Blue Cell is a by-design crisis and consequence management consulting firm with a primary focus on education and training for government at all levels, non governmental agencies and private sector entities engaged in incident and emergency management activities.

Eric Holdeman is a professional emergency manager who is passionate about providing information that can help families, businesses & governments become better prepared for disasters of all types. Hear first hand expert insights from Eric on his Podcast, Blog & EricHoldeman.com.