People often introduce me to others and say that I have a really interesting job. I’m not going to lie, I really do, and I’m passionate about it, but I’m not sure that people really know what a career in emergency management entails. Sometimes, I wonder myself!

Today I found this gem of a video via Eric at Emergency Management – in less than 5 minutes it does a really good job of summarising one part of my role – to respond to emergencies.

It’s great to see such a simple and engaging overview, although there are some differences, but I expect these are a product of different US concepts and terminology rather. Although, I’m not sure that the information on Improvised Nuclear Devices is absolutely correct.

But what the video doesn’t comment on, and indeed makes a less exciting cartoon, is the hours of work that go in to assessing and then managing the risk of emergencies, with activities that might include:

• the procurement of specialist equipment
• development of agreed response procedures between all organisations
• design, organisation and facilitation of training and validation
• providing communities and businesses with information or
• ensuring that following any incident, we emerge from it better prepared for the next one.

It’s certainly not just about sitting around and waiting until emergencies happen!

Any budding animators fancy building on this cartoon to show the true life in the day of an emergency manager/yours truly? Get in touch!

Avid readers may recognise this as a repost…technical problems meant that the original was unavoidably deleted!

I never forget the reason for my personal passion in emergency preparedness. However, like all of us, I have the occasional fleeting moment when my inner cynic rises a little closer to the surface, and all I have to do is cast my mind back…

Conceptualised as The Decade of Disaster, there was a period in the late 80’s/early 90s when sadly there were a series of emergencies within a short space of time. The majority of these were transport, sport or industrial process related. I remember sitting in presentation after presentation being reminded of these horrific incidents.

However, what I’ve come to realise is that no matter where you draw the line, you’re always able to find evidence of a ‘Decade of Disaster’. There are some statistics which suggest that disaster risk is increasing. I have no doubt that, on an international scale this is indeed the case. As the world’s population both increases and agglomerates, phenomena will have greater impact on people; and it’s probably a given that man-made disasters, with increased reliance on technology and no end in sight to economic inequalities, are also here to stay.

So, what does this mean? Why am I blogging about it? Well, the compilation of news clips above comes courtesy of the Emergency Planning College and just goes to show that we can’t stop emergencies. They will continue, and sadly, in another few years we’ll be able to pull together clips from a different decade. However, each of us, whether as individuals, members of local communities, emplopyees or employers can take action to reduce the level of impact that emergencies can have.

We have a choice, either take action, or accept that one day, it could be us in the video clips.