There is no way to sugar coat the chart below. Disbursement of disaster mitigation funds have ground to an abrupt halt. When or if they will ever recover to one degree or another is anyone’s guess. The chart came to me via Derrick Hiebert and LinkedIn. He was, by the way, an Senior Executive Service (SES) handling mitigation for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) until he left, like many other talented staff, in 2025.

Being in the US Army for twenty years did not familiarize myself with the different forms of city government. I learned it the hard way—by experiencing it firsthand as a local emergency manager. There are pros and cons for each type of government. The podcast below explores those differences with a knowledgeable expert and practitioner.

It has only three years since Artificial Intelligence (AI) burst onto the scene. Now every organization selling something is touting that their products and services are powered by AI.

You would not think that emergency management at the state and local government would be impacted by machinations around the topic of holding an early census of people living in the United States, but, but, but…there is a wrinkle…

One newspaper column or editorial is not proof of an issue. So you can take this Washington Post piece with a bit of skepticism, Gen Zers aren’t talking — and it could cost them

Claire B. Rubin is a fellow blogger at Recovery Diva. She captured the essence of a NY Times article linked below. These are the cuts that were projected in a recent blog post I had written a couple of days ago. In my opinion, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Kristi Noem are digging themselves into a very deep, dark hole. There were no significant disasters in 2025. Those positions being cut now will be needed in the future when a truly large disaster hits. It is not “mega news” now, but in the future, it will come back to bite her.

The following are sections of information I extracted from a recent AccuWeather news release.

“AccuWeather® experts estimate the total damage and economic loss from the Los Angeles County wildfires at $250 billion to $275 billion, making it one of the costliest wildfire disasters in modern U.S. history.”

Just the other day I was in the process of trying to line up a Disaster Zone Podcast guest to talk about the status of emergency management as a profession. I shared that we should do something sooner than later and then release the podcast quickly before the situation changes again—which I expect it will evolve quickly in 2026.ward. 

In my last Disaster Zone Podcast: Climate. Weather Extremes. Short Term Winter Forecast my guest had the short term prediction that this winter was going to bring much more snow than we’ve seen in recent years.

Something I have continued to follow is federal legislation that has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress. That being the requirement for vehicle manufacturers to keep AM radios in new vehicles. The purpose being to retain the ability for Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages to be received by drivers and their occupants.

It is that time of year again when we look to improve our lives. Certainly, the gyms will be packed come January with people telling themselves that they need to exercise more—I’ll be one of those wanting to finally start using weights. For emergency managers and others, we may be looking for ways to improve our program performance. I thought that this piece was a thoughtful discussion of throttling back your list of things to get done and make “reasonable” changes and improvements, Emergency Management Resolutions

You may recall that President Trump said that the Biden Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) response to Hurricane Helen was abysmal. Now almost a year later, the disaster process for buying out damaged properties (which there is a program for) to remove them from being damaged again in a future disaster (mitigation) has ground to a halt. This is on the current administration’s watch—not the Biden Administration.

Today, as I write this on Christmas Eve, Texas will have temperatures in the high 70’s for Christmas. I think that counts as a weather extreme. Aw we look back on 2025 there were plenty of weather events that sparked fires and flooding across the nation.

This is a posting I snatched from Derrick Hiebert’s LinkedIn:

FEMA LEGISLATIVE UPDATE - Senate Appropriations
Posting this at the absolute WORST time...Sunday night at 8:30PM.

I have to say I’ve been distracted by the entire Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) council fiasco. This included the final report and meeting being cancelled at the “very last minute.”

While that was ongoing there was this news that I almost missed completely, Mass. federal judge orders FEMA to restore billions in canceled disaster mitigation funding 

Why do emergency managers, and others, need to understand what is happening with the electrical grid of today? Basically, our modern society does not function without electricity and the critical infrastructure interdependencies that are associated with electricity, its production, transmission and consumption are significant.

Living here in the Pacific Northwest I’ve received a number of communications from friends and family, inquiring if everything is OK with the Holdeman’s. Yes, we are all fine is the answer.

A few thoughts on the subject of national incidents and how they portray a disaster. When the World Trade Organization (WTO) Riots happened in downtown Seattle, the impression was that the entire city was in chaos—to those not present. It is true, there wasn’t much of a commute or downtown business activity, but the rest of the city and the northwest was calm.

The President and Secretary of Homeland Security have repeatedly stated that they intend to shift more responsibility for disaster costs to the states. With that in mind, the podcast below looks at the readiness of states to absorb those increased disaster costs.  I also need to highlight that the council that was to have met on 12/11/25 had the meeting cancelled at the last moment, even after people had traveled from across the country and arrived for the meeting. Even Secretary Noem was caught off guard by the last-minute cancellation.  

Disaster Zone Podcast: Disaster Costs Will Put State Budgets at Risk