The Future of Emergency Management after 2020

Book excerpt: 2020 was a year unlike any other in U.S. history. Emergency managers were confronted with a rapidly evolving deadly virus coupled with widespread economic devastation. On top of increasingly destructive hurricanes and other extreme weather as well as ongoing drought and wildfires, there was societal upheaval. All of these crises created a witch's brew of challenges for public safety and emergency management in the middle of 2020 that continues today. For emergency managers in 2020, better strategies were needed to overcome these major crises and disasters that triggered instability and upended normal life. Mega-disasters and cascading catastrophes now must be imagined and managed for effectively. The Future of Emergency Management After 2020: The New, Novel, and Nasty looks at this new normal and at the issues that alter the scope, complexity, and priorities of emergency management. It references the last ten years, where the tragedy of 9/11 redefined priorities in the field. Drawing on the authors' extensive experience while canvassing the opinions of other emergency management professionals, this thought-provoking book offers new strategies for the crises we're now seeing—and the novel crises we might see in the future. Faculty, students, and practitioners of emergency management will find this book extremely pertinent and valuable.