Rethinking Disaster Readiness and the Role of the Private Sector

Former FEMA Administrator Brock Long, who served in the position from 2017 to 2019, has co-authored an article advocating for several fundamental concepts to consider and incorporate into pre-season hurricane and wildfire preparations and planning efforts currently underway. The first of these is to adopt FEMA’s “Community Lifelines” doctrine, which includes water and wastewater in the “Food, Water, and Shelter” Community Lifeline, explaining that this framework provides incident managers with a reporting structure to quickly stabilize a community after a disaster. With these and other recommendations, Long and his co-author highlight the importance of the private sector, noting that nearly 85 percent of the nation’s infrastructure are privately owned and operated. However, they note that “changing how the nation looks at disaster response and placing greater focus on planning with private-sector partners is a culture shift in emergency management that will take time.” Read the article at Homeland Security Today.