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.

As we move into late-stage-pandemic I’m reflecting again on what has been learnt (here are my previous musings), and what lies ahead.

Four days after the first set of lockdown rules were introduced in the UK in March 2020, British pop star Dua Lipa dropped her highly anticipated second album, Future Nostalgia.

That album features extensively in the soundtrack to ‘my pandemic’ and now, coming up to two years on, listening to it has the effect of evoking some very strong memories. Explaining the title to NPR it was confirmed that ‘future nostalgia’ was meant to describe a future of infinite possibilities while tapping into the sound and mood of something older.

The next few years will see us re-examining and re-evaluating the COVID response to shape what comes next. In much the same way as this album, looking backwards serves as the basis for looking forwards and creating something new. In this blog, I’ve set out my observations and tried to put that in the context of future nostalgia and the possibilities that lie ahead.

I ate a lot of chickpeas. I see a future that involves less meat for me. That’s better for the environment as well as animal welfare. I need to diversify my recipes though! 

I indulged in way too much doom scrolling. I have become better at setting personal boundaries with social media. I’m not great at it yet, and the recent ‘wizard author’ controversy tipped me back over the edge for a moment into rage, but it’s a journey of progress! 

I really missed hugs. I’m going to hug more (consenting!) people more often.

The long tail of delayed and postponed events is something I hadn’t considered in my own planning. I’ve had concert tickets that have been postponed for nearly 2 years. Adjusting will continue to require flexibility, patience and acceptance. I have decided to just see that as part of the rich texture of recovery, which emergency managers know is far more complex than the response phase.

I found both enjoyment and assurance in the creativity of online events and lockdown birthday celebrations. They’re not the same as in-person events by any means, but the future should embrace the creativity that has been shown (L Devine’s URL tour where she live-streamed on a different streaming platform each week, Sophie Ellis Bextor’s Kitchen Discos on a Friday evening, Drag Queen Bingo on a Saturday, Kylie Minogues Infinite DISCO extravaganza, the pivoting to recipe boxes by local restaurants, online virtual museum tours or gin tastings) and look for these to sit alongside more traditional events in the longer term.

Emergency managers knew with fairly high accuracy and confidence, what would happen, yet were ignored. Other professions will feel that too. We need to build our profile both within and between our organisations but also directly with society so that it is harder to ignore us next time. This isn’t about having the answers; all responses will be difficult and complicated, but about using the expertise, experience and capacity available.

Eat out to help out. Hands. Face. Space. Stay alert. Flatten the curve. Support bubble. Rule of six. Shielding. Clap for Key Workers. Control the virus. Protect the NHS. Lockdown. Our messaging has been far too simplistic. A global pandemic is bloody complicated. The implications are going to vary across both space and time. It is impossible to distil messaging to a three-word slogan without losing meaning and nuance. Simple messages need to play a part in a much more in-depth communications strategy. Instead of the Government telling us the rules, more time should be spent on explaining the science to allow individually informed judgements. People should listen to experts. Experts need to listen to people too (some of the SPI-B work has been fascinating but could have played a large role). In my view, this would make rules easier to implement (and could boost compliance) but might also help avoid the conspiracy, politicisation and fetishisation of future response.

I’ve started to feel nostalgic for lockdown. The clear blue skies, peace, the weather (of summer 2020 at least), the slower pace. Aspects of the last two years have been awful, but I can choose to spend more time in nature (like when we were only allowed one government permitted walk per day). I can choose to spend more time checking in with friends and loved ones. The intensity of my own nostalgia is driven by the ‘get back to normal’ messaging. I don’t want to go back to a normal that depleted PPE stocks to a bare minimum. I don’t want to go back to a normal where existing health inequities mean you’re more likely to die if you’re from a particular community. I don’t want to go back to a normal where office presenteeism is the measure of effectiveness. If we go back to normal, everything we have all been through has not been learned. We have an opportunity to remember and learn from the silence, stillness and incredible loss.

I’ll leave the final words to Dua Lipa herself:

You want a timeless song, I wanna change the game.

FUTURE NOSTALGIA.

I’ve been feeling a bit reflective recently, so thought I’d jot down the things that sprang to me as ‘learning points’ over the past year.

There will be more. The order isn’t significant. There’s a blend of work and personal. But just getting this list down has helped me organise my thoughts a bit.

1. Homeschooling is different to emergency education at home.
2. Being at home during an emergency and trying to work is not the same as working from home.
3. Clapping nurses was nice for two weeks, then became performative.
4. Chickpeas basically go with anything.
5. So do potato waffles.
6. Frozen cherries are better than ice in a gin.
7. There is a lot to be said about the curious snacks in the Polish shop.
8. Going to the cinema was more fun than I realised.
9. That couple of weeks without any cars on the roads was glorious.
10. The vanity around haircuts was surprising.
11. “Chis” stands for covert human intelligence source.
12. I miss live music more than I thought. Live-streamed music events were a tonic. Stream DISCO. 
13. My feet forgot what shoes were for a while. I was glad of the garden during that stage.
14. Cat colleagues make the best colleagues (see pic)
15. Related: when an outdoor cat becomes an indoor cat you realise just how many furballs they cough up.
16. There’s no way skinny jeans will ever be happening again. I’m ok with it.
17. Despite clearing out loads of junk, I still have a lot of junk.
18. I didn’t get the banana bread obsession. Still don’t.
19. I am a lark and an owl. I am not a [whatever is most active in the afternoons].
20. I want to be drunk in a field with friends again. That is very important to me.
21. I miss spontaneity.
22. You can walk almost anywhere if it doesn’t matter what time you arrive. And if you have the right shoes on.
23. Binge-watching is really the only skill I have honed. But I am world-class at it.
24. Nobody really understands what R is.
25. There is a clear need for good graphic design in emergency response.
26. That pandemic planning we had done has been immeasurably important, even if the government decided at the first juncture to chuck the plan in the bin.
27. Doomscrolling is real. I had to learn on several occasions to just put my phone down.
28. There’s joy in simple pleasures. I’ve now got a favourite local tree.
29. We need to be better at learning ‘as we go’ rather than debriefing at the end. We need to be better at debriefing at the end too.
30. People can come up with very creative quiz rounds when required.
31. Local communities are great in a crisis, but turf wars with neighbours intensify.
32. I despise voicemail but love a WhatsApp voice note.
33. The thought of social interaction makes me a bit anxious.
34. Time is elastic. I have no idea what day of the week it is. Blursday?
35. Figuring out that I have an onion intolerance was useful and unexpected.
36. I think I might be a hugger.
37. I can waste a lot of time watching people doing stupid shit on TikTok.
38. Lots of people have adapted to crisis quite well, but there are pockets that have struggled. We should focus future planning efforts on helping those who need help most.
39. Being able to talk about work stuff in a non-worky way is important. The sideline chats in the kitchen, the after-work drinks. They are valuable.
40. There is global overuse of the word unprecedented.
41. Bad emergency management decisions have been made which could have been avoided if an entire profession hadn’t been gaslit. No doubt other professions will feel similarly.