20 years in Emergency Management
I started my career in emergency planning twenty years ago this week. I don’t keep a diary, but I remember the exact day because it coincided with what remains the costliest tornado in UK history. On my patch!
I mentioned this in my weekly team email and thought I’d elaborate a little here.
I was a brand-new member of staff at a major acute hospital in the Midlands. The morning was spent starting to find my way around, and being shown the location of the incident coordination room. I’m glad that was included, because at 14:37 the tornado touched down and shortly afterwards word reached the Emergency Department that a major incident had been declared: the hospital should prepare to receive some of the 37 casualties.
Unlike many people in this field (at the time at least), this was exactly where I wanted to be! I hadn’t got years of expertise in a uniformed service. In fact, I never felt that was what I needed to do. I’d never put out fires, arrested people or administered more than first aid. I cared about the coordination, the systems and the space in between. I was motivated by a strong sense that there was something that needed doing, and that someone (me) should do it!
Twenty years on, I’ve still never had a job title that neatly captures what it is I really do. Over that time I’ve phased out ‘emergency planning’ from my own vocabulary, because it’s more than plans. For a while I was comfortable describing it as ‘resilience’ but I’ve found myself shifting away from that too (a little ironic, given my current role!). Lately I’ve been describing it as ‘emergency management,” which for me slightly better reflects our work: grappling with uncertainties, making decisions, and carrying the weight of responsibility when it matters most.
What’s Changed?
Some of the risks are new (welcome to our registers financial system collapse, food supply contamination and disinformation). Some risks have been retired (so long, Oak Processionary Moth!). Many many risks remain.
But the context that we work in has shifted, and not always for the better.
It’s brilliant that talk about cascading risks is more commonplace. One of my biggest achievements is our work on Anytown which started in 2014, a project which has taken me around the world as I share our innovative approach to interdependencies. Although UK audiences were the least receptive to that at first.
There’s a growing awareness and understanding that communities should be active participants in planning, not just recipients of response.
And there’s a building recognition of the specific emotional labour of our work. Time spent planning for mass fatalities, or habitat destruction, or incurable diseases takes its own kind of specific toll (we don’t always have easy work anecdotes for parties). Add to that the additional weight of response and that emergency mangers often don’t get to ‘go home’ at the end of a response. We’re also asked to identify and resolve lessons while still recovering ourselves. But I see a some shifts towards a profession which cares about its people, which is important.
But we’re increasingly expected to do more with no more (and often with less). There’s a weariness that can come from facing the same problems without the resources or time to solve them.
The playing field and players have changed. But our systems, techniques and sustainable funding need to catch up.
Why Emergency Management Matters
In times of crisis you often see the absolute best in people.
I have an unwavering belief that’s never left me: this work matters. When things go wrong, individuals and communities need our support. They need confidence that someone is thinking about and supporting them with the unimaginable, even if they never know who.
And the fantastic people that I’ve worked with and learned from. Colleagues and friends who bring compassion, perspective, and authenticity. People who show up for others, and for each other.
Emergency management doesn’t often shout for acknowledgment, but it’s a part of a societal safety net to help people when they need it.
Moments That Stay With Me
There’s really too many to mention, but a couple of moments join the Birmingham Tornado as being formative.
Swine Flu. The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Grenfell.
Each taught me different things, about systems and their limits, about public and political expectation, and about occupying the space between people and power. And in the latter case, Grenfell taught me much more about myself.
I carry a complicated sense of guilt about not being more directly involved in the COVID response. I saw (and still see) what it took out of colleagues. The hours, the pressure, that invisible always-there-ness. I also saw what happens when systems are stretched too thin.
What Comes Next
In 2023 I started to talk about the idea that emergency management is dead. Not because our work is done, but because I don’t think the old ways of working can step up to the modern challenges.
We need something different.
An approach that isn’t obsessed with control, but grounded in care.
One that sees communities not as risks to manage, but as partners with insight and capacity.
One that recognises the complex emotional reality of crisis, not just operational timelines.
One that takes seriously the people at the end of our plans.
There are signs of hope. The UK Resilience Action Plan and the Trailblazer LRFs evidence the beginning of this shift a shift toward more local ownership and a greater emphasis on inclusion and accountability. And I feel deeply privileged to be involved in that work.
Still Committed
I’m not one for loud celebrations, but 20 years feels worth acknowledging.
That tornado was a baptism by wind! I didn’t have a map of the building, or detailed knowledge of crisis response, but knew that what mattered was coordination, care, and calm.
20 years of learning, unlearning, adapting, and sometimes simply enduring. Meeting those moments, not with certainty, but with purpose, understanding and humility.
20 years of seeing the very best of what systems, and more importantly people, can do.
If you’ve been part of that journey, a sincere thank you. If you’re just beginning yours, I hope we are building something better for you to inherit.
Two decades on, when things start to spiral, it’s emergency managers that help hold us together.
