# River Mac ## Posts - [Let Emergency Management Be EMERGENCY Management](https://rivermac.com/let-emergency-management-be-emergency-management/): I’ve read so many of the responses to the new FEMA definition of emergency management, and I wanted to add my two cents. In my opinion, the definition itself is heading in the right direction. The rest of the memo becomes a little contradictory to it. It’s still trying to do everything, and it combines a lot of terms in ways that don’t make sense under the true definition of the words. But that’s what happens in FEMA policy (and maybe all federal policymaking). Everyone gets an equal say and throws things on like a Christmas tree. Sometimes a light goes […] - [Your Emergency Management Training Is Not Enough for Disasters](https://rivermac.com/your-emergency-management-training-is-not-enough-for-disasters/): Your Emergency Management Training Is Not Enough for Disasters I’ve been looking at PhD programs lately, which means I’ve spent a lot of time reading program descriptions, course catalogs, and the many ways universities define this field. It’s been illuminating, and not always in a good way. Take one program I came across. It had “Disaster Management” in its name, and it described two of its tracks this way: Emergency management: Develop the skills you need to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters that affect the public sector. Emergency services management: Build the qualities you need to be a […] - [All Available Boats](https://rivermac.com/all-available-boats/): Photo By: USCG & USCG Historian's Office - [IAPs lead to OBEs](https://rivermac.com/iaps-lead-to-obes/): IAPs lead to OBEs In military slang, there is an acronym for what happens when events on the ground move and change faster than the plan: OBE. Overcome by events. In the United States, our policy and programs prescribe Incident Action Planning in disasters, even though the process was designed for a different kind of problem. We take a tactical planning tool, scale up the organization around it, and then ask it to serve as a strategic coordinating mechanism for an entire disaster. The result is that the response and recovery systems can move much slower than the disaster itself. When […] - [Mirror World](https://rivermac.com/mirror-world/): What if we treated emergencies like disasters? Let’s lighten the mood a little for Disasters are Different blog and take a look at a mirror world to help visualize the theme. What if we treated emergencies like disasters? Picture this: a multi-family house fire. A residential neighborhood, homes close together but not attached. A fire has spread to several of them. I’ve been to plenty of these with the Red Cross as a Disaster Action Team member. We get an alert from the fire department and head over to see what the family needs, usually blankets, water, cleanup supplies, sometimes somewhere […] - [Community-centric](https://rivermac.com/community-centric/): Shifting from Government-centric to Community-Centric If the popularity and reactions to my post last week are any indication, the idea that individuals and communities impacted by disasters are the primary and majority responders in a disaster resonated. So let’s follow that premise to its logical conclusion. If individuals and communities have most of the work to do in a disaster, then the role of the wider response system has to shift too. At disaster scale, the system cannot take over all of that work, nor should we design it around the assumption that it can. Its job increasingly becomes enabling people […] - [Rethinking Disaster Preparedness Language](https://rivermac.com/rethinking-disaster-preparedness-language/): Rethinking Disaster Preparedness Language It’s time to start rethinking the language we use when preparing for disasters. So much of what we tell each other about disasters is built on the assumption that help will come. As I’ve written about often on my blog, we have developed and promoted an illusion about disasters, that officials will be able to swoop into a disaster and help will come to everyone at a household level. (at least in the US). We play out this visual in disaster preparedness education while acknowledging a possible lag: in 3 days, help will come. We tell ourselves […] - [Real Human Costs](https://rivermac.com/real-human-costs/): The Real Human Cost of our Current EM System Let’s talk about the practical numbers — the real human cost — that our current emergency management system requires in disaster. In our current system, each level of government opens an emergency operations center (EOC) and invites in everyone working on the disaster. In an emergency, when the event stays within the boundary lines of one jurisdiction, this is a great opportunity to get everyone on the same page and working together. But as it extends beyond those lines, the utility of an EOC declines rapidly — and, I’d argue, lowers the […] - [Wrong System](https://rivermac.com/wrong-system/): 𝑴𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰𝑪𝑺 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒑𝒐𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒅𝒆𝒍 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒔. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒄𝒉 𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒂 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒆𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒂𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒚𝒑𝒆𝒔.— E.L. Quarantelli, in O’Leary (ed.), The First 72 Hours, 2004 When I first found this line — buried in a short piece that Dr. Quarantelli, a forefather of disaster research, contributed to a compiled work — I jumped up and celebrated, feeling vindicated in my research quest to validate exactly that. But in a minute, I deflated in the frustration that this issue had been so thoroughly diagnosed back in 2004. […] - [Introducing Strategic Disaster Coordination](https://rivermac.com/introducing-strategic-disaster-coordination/): Resetting the Conversation I’ve spent fifteen years watching disaster management systems strain under the weight of events they weren’t built for — and wondering whether anyone else noticed the same patterns I did. Earlier this month, I published Strategic Disaster Coordination: The Missing Architecture of Disaster Management. It’s an attempt to put structure around something I’ve been wrestling with for years: the idea that we don’t actually have a system designed to manage disasters. We have a system designed for emergencies, and when disasters occur, we scale it up and hope it holds. Much of modern emergency management was built rapidly […] - [Shadows in EOCs](https://rivermac.com/shadows-in-eocs/): Seeing Shadows in EOCs — Or, The Time We Almost Got Raided by the FBI Organizational behaviorists, sociologists, and philosophers as foundational as Plato could have predicted this: lock people in a room long enough, even without the pressure of a disaster bearing down on them, and they will begin to believe the shadows on the wall are real. We have poured enormous innovation into the storytelling inside EOCs. We have invested far less in the quality of the data that storytelling is built on. The result is a kind of high-stakes telephone game. Someone catches a flap of a butterfly’s […] - [Whole Community](https://rivermac.com/whole-community/): The Problem with the Whole Community Approach Over the past few weeks, I’ve written about discouraging community donations, telling trained volunteers to wait for instructions, and watching experienced NGOs slow themselves down waiting for command. Each example looks different on the surface. But they point to the same underlying issue: how we’ve come to define the role of government versus the “Whole Community”. What Whole Community Is Most reading this are probably familiar with the framework, but let’s get on the same page. FEMA introduced the Whole Community approach in 2011. It was presented as “a philosophical approach on how to […] - [Do Not Self-Deploy](https://rivermac.com/do-not-self-deploy/): Coordination versus Command We’ve talked about how our messaging discourages community donations and tells trained volunteers to wait for instructions. Another place I’ve seen our culture unintentionally slow response is in how we work with volunteer agencies. In trying to maintain order during disasters, we sometimes lose time and momentum. I’ll start with where some of it came from as we use emergency norms in disasters, but also when the need to maintain control and establish order can significantly slow things down. Do Not Self-Deploy For a while during my time at Red Cross, this was a growing tagline. We added […] - [Waiting for Instructions](https://rivermac.com/waiting-for-instructions/): Waiting for Instructions: The CERT Paradox Just as our donation messaging can discourage helpful action, our volunteer doctrine may be having a chilling effect on community response. Not because people don’t want to help or are incapable of helping, but because we have told them, explicitly and repeatedly, to wait. The Contradiction in CERT Training After I resigned from FEMA, I found myself adrift without on-call schedules and deployments. So I signed up for my county’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program. The training was excellent and I learned valuable skills that all my years of disaster work hadn’t taught me. […] - [The Donations Dilemma](https://rivermac.com/the-donations-dilemma/): Partner vs. Parent: The Donations Dilemma Craig Fugate recently wrote about the distinction between treating disaster survivors as victims or as partners, and how well-intentioned systems can inadvertently take away the very agency people need to recover. One line in particular stuck with me: “Recovery works best when people are treated as capable adults—survivors who can make decisions, take action, and rebuild on their own terms.” It got me thinking about other ways our messaging might be taking agency away from communities. One of the most visible examples is how we talk about donations. What We Tell People If you’ve spent […] - [On Panic](https://rivermac.com/on-panic/): On Panic Do people panic in disasters? It’s a question that sits at a long-standing fault line between disaster researchers, practitioners, and the public. The debate has been going on for more than a century, at least since Samuel Prince documented behavior after a Halifax explosion. From what I have read, not only does there seem to be consensus among researchers that people as groups do not generally panic in disasters, but there is a consensus on the frustration among researchers that practitioners, reporters, and the public keep believing it. Researchers and writers, like Amanda Ripley and Rebecca Solnit, have documented […] - [Disasters are Different Intro](https://rivermac.com/disasters-are-different-intro/): Sometimes the hardest part of a disaster is realizing that you are in one at all. Introducing the Disasters are Different blog that explores what characterizes a disaster and the implications for our disaster management systems and policies. A conversational space for practitioners and researchers to work through the different viewpoints on disasters and how we manage them. ## Pages - [Disaster Coordination Lab](https://rivermac.com/lab/): Beta is now Live! Disaster Coordination Lab Enroll Here – Disaster Coordination Lab. **Join now for First Adopter discounts** Learn More: The Disaster Coordination Lab is a learning and collaboration space for people working to improve how disasters are understood, managed, and coordinated. Courses provide a shared foundation in disaster science from a practical viewpoint. Community spaces and Working Groups create room to compare experience, challenge assumptions, work through practical problems, and build better policies, programs, tools, and practices. Why the Lab Understand Before We Build Disaster management systems are often designed around procedures, organizations, and existing doctrine before we fully […] - [ERIAD Courses](https://rivermac.com/eriad-courses/): Everyone Responds in a Disaster Course Series Pilot Course Currently on Udemy marketplace When disaster hits, help may not be a phone call away. Across a century of disaster research, one pattern appears again and again: ordinary people are often the first layer of response. Neighbors. Coworkers. Family members. Strangers standing nearby. At some point, you may be one of those people. This course helps you get ready. Most disaster courses hand you a checklist. This one builds something more durable: the reference points your brain needs before pressure arrives. You will learn how to recognize when an emergency becomes a […] - [SDC](https://rivermac.com/sdc/): Strategic Disaster Coordination A space for comments, discussion, and updates. Check back often or sign up for notification as updates are made. - [Comment Policy](https://rivermac.com/comment-policy/): Comments Welcome This blog exists to discuss the nuances of disaster management. That conversation is richer when practitioners and researchers engage together. I welcome comments that: Comments I’ll Remove To keep this a productive space, I may remove comments that: Disagreement Is Welcome Disagreement is not only allowed—it’s encouraged. The purpose of this blog is to surface and explore tensions between research, policy, and practice. I won’t remove comments simply because they disagree with me or offer a different perspective, as long as they are shared in good faith and contribute to the discussion. Moderation All comments are reviewed before appearing […] - [Contact](https://rivermac.com/contact/): Get in Touch - [Services](https://rivermac.com/services/): Our Services Tailored disaster management strategies grounded in real world operational experience and disaster research. Strategic Disaster Planning Planning and preparedness support focused on how coordination actually works in practice – across agencies, partners, and communities. Outcome-based Evaluation Assessment and analysis that looks beyond operational compliance to understand what actually happened in communities during disasters. Coordination Systems Design Practical approaches to improving coordination across government, nonprofit partners, private sector and community networks, especially during complex or long-duration disasters. Let Us Help Connect with River Mac to strengthen your disaster management strategy today. - [Disasters are Different Blog](https://rivermac.com/blog/): Disasters are Different Blog A space for practitioners and researchers to think together about what really happens in disasters and whether our current approaches match those needs. Latest Insights All Posts For more information on the comment moderation, check out our Comment Policy page. - [Home](https://rivermac.com/): Empowering Communities through Strategic Disaster Coordination About Us At River Mac, we specialize in disaster management consulting and product development, empowering communities and supporting survivors through innovative strategies and dedicated expertise. Our approach is rooted in decades of real-world disaster operations across all sectors, helping clients build strategies that work with how individuals and communities naturally prepare, respond, and recover from disasters. Latest Insights Sign up to join the dialogue on the Disasters are Different blog. Our Services Strategic Disaster Planning Coordination Systems Design Outcome-based Evaluation - [About](https://rivermac.com/about/): Shannon McNamee, Founder For more than 15 years, Shannon McNamee has helped organizations and communities navigate their toughest moments – leading disaster operations, building partnerships, and designing training that makes teams stronger and more prepared. At FEMA and the American Red Cross, Shannon directed large-scale response and recovery efforts and supported planning, training and policy development for partners at every level. As a government consultant, she developed exercises that turned lessons learned into lasting improvements. Through River Mac, Shannon brings this experience to clients who want practical solutions, innovative strategies, and greater resilience in the face of crisis. Shannon holds a […] - [Privacy and Cookie Policy](https://rivermac.com/privacy-policy/): Privacy and Cookie Policy Effective Date: September 15, 2026 River Mac LLC (“River Mac,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) operates the website rivermac.com and the Disaster Coordination Lab at lab.rivermac.com, along with related online services. This Privacy & Cookie Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect personal information across those websites and services. Contact Information:River Mac LLCEmail: info@rivermac.comPhone: 571-683-3527 1. Information We Collect Contact Forms When you submit a contact form on our website, we collect: Purpose: To respond to your inquiries about our services. Disaster Coordination Lab Accounts and Course Participation When you create an account, enroll in a […] ## Optional - [Agent (MCP protocol)](websites-agents.hostinger.com/rivermac.com/mcp) [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)