The Emergency Management Network Podcast

Episode Description
September 11: The Recovery That Never Really Ended
Twenty-five years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the skyline of Lower Manhattan has been rebuilt—but recovery is about far more than buildings.
In this episode of Emergency Management Network, Todd DeVoe examines the long aftermath of 9/11: rebuilding Ground Zero, caring for responders and survivors, confronting World Trade Center-related illnesses, preserving memory, and understanding why the emotional wounds of that morning remain so powerful a quarter-century later.
Recent confrontations near Ground Zero during the 25th anniversary observances remind us that disaster memory does not follow an emergency manager’s recovery timeline. Places become symbols. Grief becomes generational. Anger can survive long after debris has been removed.
The episode also explores a sobering reality of long-term recovery: more FDNY members have now died from World Trade Center-related illnesses than were killed in the attacks themselves. Thousands of responders and survivors continue to receive monitoring and treatment, while researchers are still examining health consequences that may span generations.
September 11 challenges the way emergency managers think about recovery. Infrastructure can be restored. Businesses can reopen. Memorials can be built. But how do we measure the recovery of people?
Perhaps the lesson 25 years later is that we need to add something to “Never Forget.”
Never stop recovering.
Show Notes
Emergency Management Network
Episode: September 11: The Recovery That Never Really EndedSubtitle: 25 Years of Rebuilding, Recovery, Memory, and HealingHost: Todd DeVoe
Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, this episode looks beyond the attacks themselves and examines what happened afterward.
The World Trade Center site has been rebuilt. Lower Manhattan has transformed. Transportation, businesses, residences, and public spaces returned. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum now preserve the physical memory of what happened there.
But rebuilding a place and recovering from a disaster are not necessarily the same thing.
In This Episode
Todd examines September 11 through the lens of long-term disaster recovery, including the physical reconstruction of Lower Manhattan and the much longer process of human recovery.
The episode explores the continuing health consequences facing firefighters, police officers, construction workers, volunteers, survivors, residents, and others exposed to the World Trade Center disaster environment.
It also considers the idea of the long disaster—that deaths and consequences associated with a catastrophic event may continue years or even decades after the response phase has ended.
The 25th anniversary also demonstrated how powerful disaster memory remains. Confrontations near Ground Zero during anniversary demonstrations showed that the site is more than a geographic location. For many Americans, responders, survivors, and families, it remains sacred ground connected to grief, sacrifice, anger, and national memory.
That raises an important question for emergency managers:
When does recovery actually end?
Key Themes
Recovery is not reconstruction.Rebuilding roads, buildings, transportation systems, businesses, and infrastructure is essential, but physical reconstruction represents only one dimension of recovery.
Disaster mortality can continue for decades.World Trade Center-related illnesses demonstrate that the human consequences of a disaster may emerge long after debris removal and official recovery operations have ended.
Responder health is a recovery responsibility.The obligation to responders cannot end when an incident is demobilized. Occupational exposure monitoring, healthcare, mental health support, and long-term research must be considered part of catastrophic-disaster planning.
Memory has geography.Places such as Ground Zero, Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg, Oklahoma City, Shanksville, and the Pentagon become connected to collective memory. Emergency managers should recognize that communities may attach meaning, grief, identity, and trauma to physical locations for generations.
Social recovery matters.Disasters can create fear, anger, mistrust, discrimination, and division. Restoring social cohesion can be every bit as important—and considerably more difficult—than restoring infrastructure.
Recovery belongs to survivors, not our planning calendar.Emergency managers work with recovery frameworks, timelines, objectives, and milestones. Human beings do not necessarily recover according to those schedules.
The Question for Emergency Managers
September 11 forces us to reconsider what we mean when we say a community has “recovered.”
Is recovery complete when the debris is removed?
When businesses reopen?
When infrastructure is restored?
When a replacement building opens?
Or does recovery continue as long as responders are becoming sick, families are grieving, survivors are seeking treatment, and another generation is learning what happened?
Twenty-five years after September 11, perhaps the answer is clear:
The response ended. The recovery did not.
Final Thought
Every September we say:
Never Forget.
Perhaps the emergency management profession should add another promise:
Never stop recovering.
Never stop studying what happened. Never stop caring for responders. Never stop supporting survivors and families. Never stop examining the long-term consequences. Never stop learning.
Because rebuilding a skyline is difficult.
Rebuilding people is harder.



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Show Description
A crisis reveals the character of the people leading through it. Have they earned trust? Can they hear uncomfortable truths? Have they taken care of the team they are about to ask everything of?
In this episode of the Emergency Management Network Podcast, Todd DeVoe welcomes Eric McNulty, co-author of You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When It Matters Most, for a conversation about character, meta-leadership, and the human side of emergency management.
They explore the new edition’s emphasis on character, balancing workforce expectations with disaster demands, and creating teams where people can speak honestly and support one another. The conversation also tackles one of the profession’s toughest challenges: making consequential decisions with incomplete information while maintaining public trust.
From protecting downtime on blue-sky days to explaining evacuation decisions, this episode examines the everyday leadership practices that prepare people to perform when their communities need them most.
Show Notes
Podcast: Emergency Management NetworkHost: Todd DeVoeGuest: Eric McNulty, co-author of You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When It Matters Most
In This Episode
Todd and Eric discuss why effective crisis leadership begins long before an emergency. Character, honest communication, and relationships shape whether teams and communities will trust a leader when decisions become difficult.
Their conversation explores:
* Character before crisis: Integrity, listening, and putting the mission and people first.
* Leading across generations: Setting clear expectations while respecting boundaries, family responsibilities, and time away.
* Team resilience: Creating a workplace where colleagues support each other and can ask for help.
* Hearing truth to power: Why leaders need to welcome difficult information to avoid operational blind spots.
* Perspective and shared understanding: Bringing together what agencies, frontline personnel, and community members see.
* Public trust and transparency: Explaining what is known, what remains uncertain, and why decisions are being made.
* Evacuation decisions: Balancing competing risks and documenting the information available at the time.
* Community engagement: Building relationships and understanding public expectations before disaster strikes.
Episode Chapters
00:00 — Welcome to the EMN Podcast00:21 — Introducing Eric McNulty and You’re It01:47 — The new edition’s focus on character04:01 — Workforce expectations, boundaries, and the mission09:02 — Supporting team well-being and resilience11:25 — Truth, trust, and listening as a leader15:58 — Transparency and the Boston Marathon bombing response17:11 — Different perspectives and a shared understanding20:04 — Deepwater Horizon: uncertainty and response decisions21:21 — Evacuations, public criticism, and leadership23:56 — Explaining and documenting decisions under uncertainty26:16 — Community participation in emergency planning27:30 — Evacuation behavior and competing risks29:11 — How people interpret emergency messages31:30 — The new edition and supporting future emergency managers33:00 — A closing message of appreciation for the profession
Key Takeaway
The work of crisis leadership starts on ordinary days: earn trust, welcome difficult conversations, care for your team, and help the community understand how decisions are made.
Featured Resource (this is not associated with any affiliate program)
You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When It Matters Most — book information



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Show Description
When a disaster begins high in the mountains, its consequences can reach communities far downstream before people understand what is coming.
In this episode of the Emergency Management Network podcast, we examine Nepal’s devastating August 26 flash flood and debris flow, the unfolding humanitarian emergency, and the operational challenges facing responders. Preliminary USGS findings describe a rapid slope failure involving a glacier that sent destructive debris and floodwaters nearly 100 kilometers downstream. USGS
Amid the destruction, a last-minute warning helped a school leader evacuate more than 900 students—a powerful starting point for discussing warning systems, decision authority, and protective action. Reuters
We explore the immediate response priorities, the consequences of damaged infrastructure, and the responsibilities that continue long after the initial flood. For emergency management professionals, this episode asks: What does this disaster reveal about our own readiness, and what should we do with those lessons?
Show Notes
Briefing Script — Situation as of August 31, 2026
Nepal is confronting a major flash-flood and debris-flow disaster along its northern border with Tibet. The event began on August 26, when a rapid slope failure involving a glacier in Langtang National Park likely sent rock, mud, ice, and water into the Lende Khola and Trishuli river systems. The destructive flow traveled nearly 100 kilometers downstream. The precise initiating mechanism remains preliminary and requires continued scientific assessment. USGS
The humanitarian consequences are severe. According to the cited reporting, Nepalese authorities have reported more than 900 deaths, over 4,200 people missing—including hundreds of foreign nationals—and more than 10,000 rescues. The Nepal Red Cross estimates that more than 90,000 people have been affected. These figures are provisional; access constraints, debris burial, displacement, and disrupted communications complicate accountability. NBC News
This is a compound mountain disaster, with flooding, debris movement, isolation, and infrastructure failures creating overlapping response challenges. Buildings and a vital highway connecting Nepal and China have reportedly been buried or destroyed. USGS Reports also indicate that hundreds of workers may be trapped or unaccounted for at damaged hydropower projects in Rasuwa and Nuwakot. Associated Press
So What? Now What for the Emergency Management Professional?
The following priorities frame our operational discussion:
* Sustain lifesaving operations. Support search and rescue, missing-person accounting, and family reunification, particularly in isolated valleys and at damaged hydropower sites.
* Restore safe access. Assess and establish ground and air access to communities isolated by road and bridge failures, while accounting for responder safety and changing conditions.
* Meet immediate humanitarian needs. Coordinate emergency shelter, safe water, food, trauma care, and continuity of essential health services.
* Rebuild situational awareness. Restore communications and conduct rapid damage, needs, and infrastructure assessments.
* Monitor secondary hazards. Maintain downstream monitoring and public warning while assessing unstable slopes, river blockages, rainfall, and glacial hazards.
* Plan for sustained displacement and recovery. Incorporate education, protection, psychosocial support, and safer reconstruction into early recovery discussions.
According to the cited UN report, the United Nations has released an initial $2 million in emergency funding, while WHO has deployed emergency health supplies sufficient to support basic health services for up to 10,000 people. UNICEF reports that at least 17,000 children have been affected, facing risks associated with disease, malnutrition, disrupted education, violence, and exploitation. UN News
Nepal’s emergency requires simultaneous attention to immediate life safety and prolonged needs involving access, shelter, health, infrastructure, and recovery. Our discussion considers how government-led coordination, local capacity, and international support can address those demands while continuing to monitor cascading hazards.
Lifesaving Warnings: The School Evacuation
Reuters reports that a last-minute warning helped save more than 900 students at Tribhuvan Trishuli Secondary School. We use that account to examine the connection between receiving information and initiating protective action. Reuters
Discussion questions include:
* Who can authorize an immediate evacuation without waiting for additional approval?
* Can warnings reach schools through multiple, trusted communication channels?
* Do evacuation plans address arriving buses, accessible transportation, accountability, and family reunification?
* How do local emergency managers receive information about threats originating upstream or across borders?
* How can recovery decisions reduce exposure to future disasters?
Additional Reading
NPR: Nepal floods, climate change, and the Himalayas
Information reflects reporting available as of August 31, 2026. Casualty figures, missing-person totals, humanitarian estimates, and scientific findings are provisional and should be checked before recording or publication.
Nepal Flash Flood: Top-Rated Charities Providing Relief
https://blog.charitywatch.org/nepal-flash-flood-top-rated-charities-providing-relief/



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Episode Description
The storm passes. The rain stops. The winds die down. And sometimes, that is when the real emergency begins.
Electricity is the backbone of nearly every system modern communities depend upon. Communications, water and wastewater systems, hospitals, fuel distribution, traffic control, grocery stores, banking, transportation, emergency operations, and even our ability to receive warnings depend in some way on reliable power.
In this episode of the Emergency Management Network Podcast, we examine the vulnerability of the American electrical grid following major storms and extreme weather events. The problem is bigger than a few downed power lines. Hurricanes, tornadoes, derechos, ice storms, flooding, wildfires, and extreme temperatures can damage generation, transmission, substations, and local distribution systems simultaneously.
More importantly, we explore what happens next.
What does a 24-hour outage mean for a community? What changes at 72 hours? What happens when backup generators begin running low on fuel, cellular sites lose power, medically vulnerable residents need assistance, grocery stores cannot refrigerate food, traffic signals stop working, and public safety agencies are operating on emergency power?
For emergency managers, the electrical grid isn’t simply another piece of critical infrastructure. It is the infrastructure upon which much of the rest of our response system depends.
We discuss where the vulnerabilities exist, why severe storms continue to expose them, and what emergency managers should be doing now to prepare for prolonged and cascading power failures.
The question isn’t simply whether the lights will come back on.
The question is: What can your community continue to do until they do?
Show Notes
This episode explores the intersection between extreme weather, electrical-grid reliability, critical infrastructure, and emergency management.
We examine how severe storms can damage transmission and distribution infrastructure and why the consequences extend far beyond homes losing electricity. Major outages can quickly become cascading incidents affecting communications, healthcare, transportation, water systems, fuel supplies, businesses, food distribution, and government operations.
Topics include:
* Why severe weather remains one of the greatest threats to electrical reliability
* The difference between generation, transmission, and distribution failures
* How damaged substations, transmission lines, poles, transformers, and vegetation can complicate restoration
* Why undergrounding electrical lines can help in some circumstances but is not a universal solution
* The growing importance of microgrids, distributed generation, battery storage, and backup power
* Generator dependence and the challenge of maintaining fuel supplies during prolonged outages
* Telecommunications and cellular-system vulnerabilities when commercial power fails
* The consequences of simultaneous power and communications failures
* Impacts on hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, pharmacies, dialysis centers, and medically dependent populations
* Water and wastewater system dependencies on electricity
* Traffic signals, transportation networks, fuel stations, and supply-chain disruptions
* The role of utilities inside the Emergency Operations Center
* Identifying critical facilities and prioritizing restoration
* Community Lifelines and cascading infrastructure failures
* Planning for outages lasting 24, 48, 72 hours—or longer
* Why continuity planning must assume that commercial electricity may not be immediately available after a major disaster
The Emergency Management Question
Emergency managers cannot rebuild the nation’s electrical grid, but we can understand our dependencies on it.
Every jurisdiction should be asking:
What stops working when the power goes out?
Then:
What stops working when it stays out for three days?
Those two questions can reveal vulnerabilities that may never appear in a traditional hazard assessment.
Electrical resilience isn’t simply a utility problem. It is a community resilience problem.



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Episode Description
What can emergency managers learn when disasters strike very different communities at nearly the same time?
In this episode of the Emergency Management Network Podcast, Todd DeVoe and Andrew Boyarsky return from the IAEM Region 9 Symposium in Honolulu with a fresh perspective on preparedness, logistics, resilience, and the power of community.
The conversation begins in Hawaii, where geography changes nearly every assumption emergency managers make about mutual aid and logistics. When help, equipment, food, and personnel may be thousands of miles away, “leaning forward” isn’t simply good practice—it can be essential.
Todd and Andrew then turn to the severe storms, flooding, and tornadoes affecting Indiana and other parts of the country. Different hazards. Different geography. But many of the same lessons.
Emergency managers cannot afford to plan only for what happened last time. Wildfires can create tomorrow’s debris-flow problem. Extreme rainfall can overwhelm places that have never flooded before. And communities that wait until disaster strikes to build relationships have already lost valuable time.
The most important lesson may also be the simplest: preparedness begins with people.
From involving residents in emergency planning to knowing the people who live next door, resilience is built long before the EOC activates. Government can facilitate the process, but it cannot create resilient communities by itself.
Two storms. Two very different places. One lesson: know your community, understand your vulnerabilities, build relationships before the disaster, and prepare for the events everyone says could never happen here.
Two Storms, One Lesson
Community, Preparedness, and the Paradox of Paradise
Hosts: Todd DeVoe and Andrew BoyarskyPodcast: Emergency Management Network Podcast
In This Episode
Todd and Andrew reflect on their time at the IAEM Region 9 Symposium in Honolulu and the lessons that Hawaii offers emergency managers everywhere.
Hawaii’s beauty comes with significant vulnerabilities. Distance from the mainland, separation between islands, limited transportation routes, and dependence on imported resources mean emergency managers must think differently about logistics and mutual aid.
The discussion then moves to severe weather affecting Indiana and other parts of the United States, including flooding, tornadoes, high winds, and the challenge of preparing for hazards in places where people may believe, “That doesn’t happen here.”
Todd and Andrew explore what these events mean for emergency managers preparing for the next disaster—and why yesterday’s assumptions may no longer be enough.
Topics Discussed
* Lessons from the IAEM Region 9 Symposium in Honolulu
* Hawaii’s unique emergency management challenges
* The logistics of supporting remote and island communities
* The importance of pre-positioning resources and leaning forward
* Severe storms, tornadoes, flooding, and changing hazard conditions
* Wildfires and the secondary threat of debris flows and land movement
* Normalcy bias and the danger of saying, “That never happens here”
* Thinking about the unthinkable
* Community Lifelines and community preparedness
* Bringing residents into the emergency planning process
* Building relationships before disaster strikes
* Knowing your neighbors as a preparedness strategy
* CERT, VOAD, COAD, nonprofits, and volunteer organizations as force multipliers
* Government’s role as a facilitator rather than the sole source of solutions
* Hawaii’s “paradox of paradise”
* The spirit of Ohana and what it can teach emergency managers about resilience
Two Storms, One Lesson
The hazards may be different, but the lesson is remarkably similar.
Emergency managers must understand the communities they serve—not simply their hazards, infrastructure, and response capabilities, but their people, relationships, vulnerabilities, strengths, and culture.
Preparedness cannot begin when the warning is issued.
It begins when neighbors meet one another. It happens when residents participate in emergency planning. It grows when government, nonprofits, volunteers, businesses, and community organizations build relationships before anyone needs them.
As Todd observes in the episode, government doesn’t always have the answer to every problem. But it can help create the conversations, partnerships, and conditions that allow a community to become stronger.
Key Takeaway
Understand where you live. Know your vulnerabilities. Listen to your community. Build relationships before the emergency.
Because when disaster strikes, resilience isn’t something we suddenly create.
It’s something we discover we have already built.
Stay safe. Stay hydrated.



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