It seems like we’re all on edge waiting for the next disaster, whether it be a potential pandemic, an unexpected storm, or an active shooter. As a result, today’s local government leader will be required to rethink and reimagine how to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the growing threat of disasters.

All disaster types traumatize us individually and collectively. While challenging our resolve, they also seem to touch every part of our lives and bring us together in ways nothing else does. Yet, the public management professionals and agencies critical to response and recovery are often scattered across siloed bureaucracies. Regardless of the size of your community, a disaster is coming your way, and in its wake, creating a thriving, people-centered, resilient community will require a new perspective.

Anxiety provoked by uncertainty can be overcome by a greater sense of control and predictability through preparation and planning. And the best way to gain that control and strengthen your emergency management efforts is by integrating your various public safety functions.

Disaster response often requires coordination with separate emergency management agencies, while also relying on human services and public works organizations and sometimes federal agencies as well. Rebuilding resources, and doing so in a resilient way, may come from a variety of state and federal agencies, each with their own mission and regulatory framework.

Even though numerous professional resources exist for the specific roles within public safety, emergency management, community development, floodplain management, etc., we must create opportunities for these professionals to come together and learn best practices across discipline and across platform.

Emergency management has been part of the American pantheon since World War II, when the focus was preparing for enemy attack. The creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1979 consolidated five agencies in disparate parts of the federal government, institutionalizing modern thinking about emergencies and disaster management.

While perspectives on the construct of disaster management have and will continue to evolve, there is a common understanding of three critical hallmarks, which only strengthen the case for cross-discipline public safety integration.

Similarity: All disasters have common features, suggesting that many of the same management strategies can apply to each.

Partnership: Success requires partnership among all sectors, allowing disaster victims to contribute to emergency management solutions.

Life Cycle: Disasters exist throughout time and have a life cycle of occurrence.

First Responders — Learning from the Consolidated Public Safety Model

There’s a reason they’re called first responders. Across the nation, nearly 18,000 police, 27,000 fire, and 21,000 EMS agencies use 700 to 800 MHz UHF and VHF radios to communicate with one another. A recent example of the importance of those connections and the response they trigger is the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

At 1:27 a.m., the Dali container ship issued its mayday call while drifting in the Patapsco River, and within one minute, traffic was prevented from crossing the bridge. Sixty seconds later, at 1:29 a.m., the bridge was gone. Multiple agencies immediately began a rescue operation and within minutes the Baltimore Fire Department Marine Unit had divers in the water. By 2:15, the injured construction workers were receiving medical attention. While six workers perished in the wreckage, without that immediate response, the loss of life would have been much more disastrous.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were just under 6 million motor vehicle crashes in 2022. Those crashes are responsible for approximately 14.5% of people-initiated contact with police and a little less than half of those crashes result in injuries. A U.S. fire department responds to a call every 24 seconds, and according to the U.S. Fire Administration, fires account for only 6% of their responses. The vast majority of calls are for medical issues.

If police are typically first on scene for nearly every emergency and medical issues are the predominant reason for firefighter responses, it’s surprising that more communities have not consolidated their public safety functions.

Michigan State University’s Program on Police Consolidation and Shared Services identified 131 consolidated public safety agencies across the nation, 47% of which are in Michigan. That’s not surprising, given that the city of Oak Park, a diverse, inner-ring suburb of Detroit with approximately 30,000 residents, led the nation in consolidating its three public emergency agencies in 1954.

Fraser, Michigan’s director of public safety, Samantha Kretzschmar, a 30-year police department veteran, can’t imagine it any other way. “I’ve always had all the gear I need in my cruiser. A public safety professional’s training and ability to respond ‘belts off, boots on’ is the most effective way for them to answer the call regardless of the emergency they face when they arrive on scene.”

Public managers must think beyond their own community boundaries and budgets and consider the long view, examining opportunities to consolidate across discipline and seeking cooperation in a larger geographic area, while also sharing public safety obligations.

ICMA’s Center for Public Safety Management can be a good place to start. The cross training that empowers public safety professionals to best respond to emergencies can provide a model for coordination of a wider variety of professionals that are part of the larger disaster and emergency management construct.

Navigating Federal Assistance

Climate change is life changing. Natural disasters touch every part of people’s lives—and these days they are touching more people’s lives more often. The United States has experienced 348 weather and climate disasters since 1980, and the total cost of these events exceeded $2.510 trillion.

Over the last decade, 88.5% of U.S. counties declared a natural disaster and that number is expected to grow exponentially as climate change continues to cause disasters to occur with greater frequency and impact. FEMA administers assistance after presidential declaration for specific counties impacted by disaster. State, tribal, county, eligible local, and nonprofit agencies in declared counties can receive aid under FEMA’s Public Assistance (PA) program to reimburse agencies for emergency work defined as debris removal and emergency protective measures.

FEMA’s Individual Assistance (IA) programs allow individuals in declared counties to receive aid for homes, vehicles, personal property, businesses, or inventory that were damaged in the disaster. Assistance can include grants to help pay for temporary housing, emergency home repairs, uninsured and underinsured personal property losses, and other serious disaster-related expenses. But, in Detroit in 2021, after the region’s water infrastructure failed, only 46% of those that sought assistance from FEMA’s IA program were successful in being reimbursed for their loss.

FEMA PA is the largest grant program providing funds to assist communities responding to and recovering from disasters. In the simplest terms, FEMA’s PA program is essentially the insurance company for state and local government to protect and rebuild public sector assets. Referred to as “permanent work,” it is categorized to include roads and bridges, water infrastructure, and public buildings and contents. Similar to private insurance, FEMA PA assistance reimburses for the majority of the loss, typically at 75% of the cost. Each state determines how the non-federal share of 25% is split because the local share is analogous to private insurance deductibles.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program typically receives funds every year to provide assistance to support a broad range of recovery activities. Congress appropriated $7.4 billion in CDBG-DR funds to support recovery following Hurricanes Henri, Harvey, and Irma for 2017, and in 2023, the amount was $142 million for natural disasters across the country. Smaller communities may have even more challenges navigating HUD’s regulations, especially since jurisdictions under 50,000 in population are not eligible for HUD’s annual entitlement fund, even though on a relative scale, the damages are just as devastating.

In an effort to reduce financial exposure in declared communities, governors often make broad commitments to use CDBG-DR funds, when they are available, as the local share or “match” for the PA program. And while the HUD funds can help, these two federal resources come from two very different agencies with very different missions, and very often, conflicting regulations. Attempts to link these two incohesive sources can be problematic and may, in fact, undermine efforts to maximize federal disaster aid.

Finally, a community’s ability to access large and competitive disaster aid resources like FEMA’s $3.46 billion Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and $1 billion Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities programs, as well as HUD’s CDBG mitigation resources, will depend in large part on a municipality’s posture, as well as advanced and sound project planning.

After 25 years in community and economic development, complex federal and military projects, and large public works programs, I was recruited by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo to stand up the new Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery. I saw firsthand the devastation the storm had inflicted on communities in New York as we worked to rebuild the state’s infrastructure after Superstorm Sandy. Managing billions of dollars of federal disaster aid across several agencies gave me a new perspective. As both a disaster professional and disaster survivor, I believe communities should consider the following recommendations.

Making Your Community and Your Local Government More Resilient

Develop Organizational Capacity

It’s hard for public agencies to breathe. Different aspects in the disaster cycle will put pressure on the department that, at the moment, is in the lead. The situation can be exacerbated by the large amount of financial resources that might come to help it recover. Shrinking the staff after growing it to meet the demands of the community as they struggle to survive, restore order, conduct repairs, and plan for resiliency places additional burden on public management professionals already spread thin.

Often, consultants and contractors can be an easy way to grow an organization in the short term. Getting them onboard quickly to meet an agency’s immediate needs may be difficult in the context of public procurements. At the same time, when they leave, they can take with them the institutional knowledge and expertise critical to prepare your organization for the next time—because there will be a next time.

Alternatively, public managers might mirror the public safety and electric utility mutual aid model or consider establishing supportive sister city relationships across the country versus around the globe. Training to empower your staff with various kinds of technical expertise in disaster management would allow local government professionals from another geography to be “called up” to support their colleagues.

Plan and Integrate

Strengthen your emergency management plan by thinking about all the ways your community can be hit by a disaster: biological, chemical, explosion, cyber, violence, building collapse, and those nasty natural ones. Invest in cross training. Include every corner of every agency within and outside local government—human service agencies, healthcare, businesses, places of worship, and residents—because in a disaster, the CAO cannot be the only one that knows what everybody does and how to run a string through the pearls. When a disaster strikes, there’s no time for silos. It’s “all hands on deck” and redundancy makes you resilient. Establish a communication plan and make sure you communicate that plan to everyone involved ahead of time.

Then, think about all the things you might need when disaster strikes and procure those goods and services in advance with standby contracts: dumpsters, tarps, traffic equipment, heavy construction equipment, temporary facilities, consultants, temporary staffing, human service agencies to assist folks with filing their FEMA claims, accommodations for your sister city colleagues, gloves, masks, etc. Think about sharing procurements across municipal boundaries. Use HUD’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) regulations in preparing the procurements, so two years later, those expenditures will qualify for using CDBG – Disaster Recovery (DR) as FEMA PA Local Share.

Resilience Budgeting

Communities are dealing with an ever-changing set of economic challenges. Along with tough economic choices about schools, transportation, paid leave, mental health services, salaries, sustainability, etc., communities must include resiliency in their budgeting.

Precious public resources, especially those critical for a community’s resilience and recovery, cannot be squandered. It is incumbent upon local governments to do everything in their power to maximize federal funds, while effectively leveraging their own resources and developing creative solutions to these difficult economic challenges.

When considering projects, managers should seek an opportunity for a “two-for.” A community development project might acquire riverfront land for a park while also expanding or shifting a floodplain. Consider a special tax to feed a literal rainy-day fund, and ensure it is protected so it does not get siphoned off for other purposes. Engage with philanthropy to support planning and assist in recovery before financial aid arrives after a disaster.

Lastly, comprehensive economic resilience must also be part of the equation. Look at financing used to support investments for economic development and link them to resilience. Instead of a grant for that expanded factory or distribution center on the edge of town, give that company a 30-year, 1% loan and use the interest income to invest in other items the community needs, like on Main Street, or for a levee, acquisition of land for an expanded floodplain, or resilient home improvements.

Transformational Leadership

Relying on federal disaster resources is challenging. Helping survivors succeed with their claims is important to their and the community’s recovery. At the same time, there is a bevy of grants for community development, climate resiliency, community policing, and the like, and these one-time financial infusions should be sought by local leaders and used strategically, while also leveraged for long-term resilience.

Congressional representatives need to learn more about how the policy rubber meets the practical road and ensure that the special appropriations from Congress are available for the largest possible sector of communities. Elected officials should not only weigh in, but ensure their constituents are not left out.

A Final Word

Batteries. When we are talking about complex regulatory matters and restructuring fragmented government organizations, it’s hard to imagine that something as simple as batteries would be how we end this discussion. (Do you have some at home? Are there fresh ones in your flashlight or transistor radio?) Thinking about the critical role of something as simple as batteries can help you reflect on the larger implications of emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation.

Regardless of the disaster type, local government leaders must change their posture and cadence in response. This will require not just cooperation, but integration, where everyone understands the potential impact of natural and man-caused threats to their community. It will require them to leverage resources within the community and look beyond the limits of their individual agency and geography, as well as effectively maximizing federal disaster aid when it becomes available.

Looking into the coming decades as we expect climate-caused disasters and trends in violence to continue to escalate, it is incumbent upon public managers to assess both the human and financial resources within our communities. We will have to act with intention to build capacity as the variety of threats to our communities continue to grow. We must reimagine our organizational construct, consolidate where we can, and integrate as much as possible. If resiliency is tantamount to surviving through and thriving after a disaster, managers must examine expenditures through that lens and seek supplemental resources whenever and wherever possible. When disaster strikes, it touches all of us and every part of our lives. Therefore, everyone must be engaged in the effort, from citizen to senator.

Public managers can lead that charge, and together we will be more prepared, less anxious, and more effective in our response and more successful in our recovery.

Special thanks to Samantha Kretzschmar, director of public safety in Fraser, Michigan, for her contributions to this article.

JAY C. JUERGENSEN is a nationally recognized expert in community and economic development, disasters and recovery and capital programs/public works management, having implemented $30 billion of investment in more than 31 communities and 20 states. His national practice is based in Brooklyn and Detroit. You can learn more about his work at j-assoc.com.