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Jim has spent 3 decades in emergency management, including 12 years at the local level as director of the City of Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management and 8 and a half years as Washington State’s Emergency Management Division Director. Jim retired from state service in March 2013. Jim also served as President of the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) from January 2011 to October 2012. He is currently sole proprietor of “EM Northwest Consulting” based in Seattle.
Disclaimer
Information on this Blog is provided with the understanding that the authors and publishers are not engaged in rendering professional advice or services. As such, it should not be used as a substitute for consultation with an professional adviser. Opinions expressed here represent the viewpoints of individuals authoring the blog and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the Center of Excellence.
WTO riots and Y2K (1999) Podcast
Interdependencies – November 2021
Interdependencies by Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed The 1950’s health crisis was a crippling and killer disease, polio, that parents feared every time their children complained of headaches, tiredness, stomach pain, etc. Once developed, polio vaccines were quickly embraced, administered in schools; that health crisis was abated. We depended on and trusted medical [...]
Time to Shake Up the Great American Shakeout? – October 2021
Time to Shake Up the Great American Shakeout? By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Let there be no mistake: the Great American Shakeout is an excellent effort to raise awareness of the earthquake risk and the damage it could create. It is essential to raise awareness about the damages that could occur, not [...]
9/11/01-1/6/21 and Beyond – Is the Homeland Secure?
9/11/01-1/6/21 and Beyond - Is the Homeland Secure? By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Unrelenting false claims of election fraud led to the attempt to violently overthrow the government of the United States on January 6, 2021. Sometimes it sucks to be prescient. In June 2020’s “Emergency Management Once Removed,” I wrote this: [...]
9/11/01-1/6/21 and Beyond – Eroding Confidence in Government
9/11/01-1/6/21 and Beyond – Eroding Confidence in Government By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Although the 9/11 terrorists owed their success in some measure to poor coordination between federal government agencies, the feds “generously” sought to share responsibility for their lack of preparedness; protecting the “homeland” suddenly became a shared responsibility that local [...]
9/11/01 -1/6/21 and Beyond
9/11/01 -1/6/21 and Beyond By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed On September 10, 2001, I naively thought I had enough problems on my plate. The new Bush Administration was attempting to redirect virtually every unallocated federally appropriated dollar to address “new” priorities (emergency managers may recall the assault on funding for “traditional” natural [...]
What Now? – June 2021
What Now? By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed We must have an unflinching but hopeful and constructive post – COVID assessment. Can one prepare a useful and truthful COVID -19 after-action report to spur national planning for the next pandemic in our volatile political climate? How to minimize the impulse to reproach or [...]
Emergency Management’s Journey to Resilience – May 2021
Emergency Management’s Journey to Resilience: Using Our Words by Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Where does the term “resilience” fit among these standard emergency management terms? Mitigation. Preparedness. Response. Recovery. Prevention (how did that get in here?). Finally, Resilience. Mitigation: efforts to minimize the negative consequences of a known hazard. Preparedness: a thoughtful [...]
A Year of COVID – April 2021
A Year of COVID: Looking Back, Looking Around, Looking Ahead By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed It has been more than a year since the pandemic turned life upside down for everybody. Emergency managers and homeland security professionals should soon begin to assess what went right, as well as identifying any missteps along [...]
A Retrievable Legacy for Disaster Mitigation – March 2021
A Retrievable Legacy for Disaster Mitigation By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed In 1997 James Lee Witt, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), established a pilot program to reduce the human and economic cost of disasters. The purpose: incentivize the government, private sector, and the public to collaborate on the identification and [...]
Trust – February 2021
Trust By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Well before the pandemic began exacting its horrific toll, “trust in government” was on a downward spiral. Last January, in “Government’s Trust Deficit: A Possible Antidote,” I suggested a program of community-centric disaster exercises that could be used to prepare the public for a disaster. The [...]
The Whole World Was Watching – January 2021
The Whole World Was Watching – January 6, 2021 By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Some of us also have been watching what I hope was the last act in a dangerous display of violence fueled by years of dishonesty, threats, the vilification of fellow citizens, and finally an attempted coup. Do not [...]
“There is Too Much: Let Me Sum Up” – December 2020
“There is Too Much: Let Me Sum Up” - Emergency Management Once Removed 2020 By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed January: “Government’s Trust Deficit: A Possible Antidote” proposed that emergency managers “devise exercises in which the public can participate, to “penetrate the divisive “white noise” that makes essential government messaging difficult to transmit [...]
In Other News… – November 2020
In Other News (Or Let’s Get Back to Governing) By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Nov 10, 2020: “Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler today delivered recommendations to create a statewide disaster resilience office to Gov. Jay Inslee, the Legislature and other state leaders, as recommended by the Disaster Resiliency Work Group. “ When I drifted into semi [...]
A Word to Emergency Managers About 2020
A Word to Emergency Managers About 2020 By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Note to Readers: This commentary first appeared in the National Emergency Management Association’s (NEMA) October edition of Ready Nation: People. Since I had the privilege of serving as both a local and state emergency management director, it has been suggested [...]
About Us – October 2020
About Us By Jim Mullen Emergency Management, Once Removed Black slaves once were counted in the Census as 3/5 human beings, a “compromise” that inflated slave states’ population, boosting their representation in Congress (and the Electoral College). In 1876 Rutherford B. Hayes ascended to the Presidency after a disputed election largely because he agreed [...]