Another Indicator of the Future with FEMA

I just did a blog post on the value of “in-person” training and after shooting it off to be posted to the Disaster Zone Blog, I read the following on LinkedIn from someone attending the Florida Hurricane Conference.  Note that the link calls it the Governor’s Hurricane Conference, but the state is not there!

“Sitting at the Florida Governor’s Hurricane Conference and I can’t help but be disappointed in the absence of Florida Division of EM, FEMA and others who have historically attended this conference en masse.

What I have said for almost 30 years is that this conference is the premiere emergency management conference. Other events have been good, but there has been nothing that has reached the level that the GHC has attained bring together all emergency management players including our friends from Caribbean islands.

I realize now more than ever the success of this conference is learning from each other, meeting new partners and creating a conducive environment for fostering partnerships, mentorship’s, and ultimate collaboration.

The absence of attendees from State and Federal Government this year doesn’t change the content of the conference, but it is truly a missed opportunity for what has made this conference premiere. So for whatever reasons the decisions were made to limit attendance, i believe it’s short sighted and hurts us all. It especially hurts the spirit of collaboration that this conference is known for.

I don’t know the why, nor care to debate the myriad of influences that got us here, but I truly look forward to learning from this and seeing a return to normal in 2026.”

The above is just another example of politics injecting itself into emergency management to the detriment of disaster resilience. And, I don’t see anything changing in 2026.