Disaster Tough Podcast

Kyle King is an expert at, “building more resilient communities and human capital at the intersection of crisis, conflict, and emergency management.” He has decades of experience with military and political organizations including those associated with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Kyle and our host, John Scardena discuss the differences between the US and Europe perspective of emergency management and share ideas how each can benefit from identified best practice.

Previous episode with great content! Chief Walt Lewis serves on the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Florida Task Force 4 team and operates as a District Chief for Orlando Fire. Chief Lewis has been able to successfully combine forces with his emergency management counter-parts, looking at the fire perspective and coordinating other stakeholders of the disaster lifecycle.

In this episode we talk about leadership, firefighting and the culture of fire rescue, training, and incident command. As noted in the show, all groups that play a role within the disaster lifecycle should apply these principles of success, which highlights the need for cross-sector training and collaboration.

We want to provide a big thanks to Disaster Medical Solutions for inviting Doberman Emergency Management the the State Urban Search and Rescue skill based training conference. Joe Hernandez, C.E.O, is a great friend of the show and led a flawless conference. It is at this SUSAR conference that we met other powerhouse first responders and instructors , like Chief Lewis. Thanks again for the invite Joe!

John Spencer is the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies for the Modern War Institute at West Point. John is a researcher and subject matter expert for the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks. He is also the host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast.

On our typical day of recording, we spent our time in New York City, supporting another webinar on The Readiness Lab- EM Speaks. They interviewed Pete Gaynor and Craig Fugate. We’re adding Brock Long to the conversation for a 3 dose FEMA Admin experience. Happy Thanksgiving!

Want us to review a specific movie or scene? Comment below! Movie: Twister Scene: Driving through tornadoes (water spouts and cows) This is our first episode of "MOVIE AAR" a show detected to the review of disasters that happen in movies from the perspective of professional emergency emergency managers. We talk about what's realistic and fake, what is happening in the disaster response, and share PSAs that will help you if you find yourself in a similar disaster. Sorry for the potato quality of audio during one of the clips! Best we could do during our, "pirate" episode. Movie Credit: Movie: Twister Warner Brothers Studio Hosts: John Scardena Patrick McGinn

Conducting a business impact analysis, understanding the Global Supply-chain, and working in concert with technologies is an absolute necessity for the emergency manager of tomorrow. Amazon is a behemoth in the supply chain world and Andrew helps run their IT systems from the perspective of business continuity. He shares his thoughts on supply chain, data science, and how the pandemic has impacted business.

Andrew Donawa has worked in local programs in the Carolinas, Nebraska, and most recently Iowa. He is an excellent resource on building emergency management programs and leading with an eye towards disaster risk reduction. Andrew builds disaster tough communities through leadership, training, working with stakeholders, and addressing the whole community.

Jessica Kindig comes from Indiana’s Department of Homeland Security & Jeremy Swartz is the FEMA FIT lead assigned to Indiana. They work together as State and Federal partners to provide training.

In this episode, we talk about past exercises in Indiana, such as a long-term power outage caused by an EMP and talk about the need to include stakeholders in emergency management and coordination.

The complexity of earthquake planning takes a wholistic approach because earthquakes can impact the full spectrum of emergency management practice (life, property, and continuity of operations). FEMA earthquake experts from Region’s X, IX, and VIII talk about what they are doing to plan for (and mitigate) these events.

This is truly a roundtable discussion and a great example of emergency management practice because our three guests are each experts and representatives for their FEMA Region, yet bring a different perspective to the topic of earthquake safety.

FEMA Region X: Amanda Siok is an urban planner
FEMA Region IX: Anne Rosinski is a geologist
FEMA Region VIII: Sean McGowan is an engineer

By bringing their unique perspectives to the table to FEMA earthquake mitigation, safety, planning, and recovery- they are each able to focus on different aspects of the topic while adding value as a whole, working together to reduce risk for the communities they serve.

Kyle McPhee is the Director of Preparedness Programs at Hagerty. On this episode, we share insights on why preparedness must be a focus, how preparedness and the Pandemic have impacted the US perspective on preparedness, and review how emergency managers can build upon their own programs in order to become Disaster Tough.