Author's Note: This was one of the most difficult articles I've published. The observations and critiques that follow aren't easy to put forward—partly because I once believed deeply in the messaging and mission I'm questioning here, and partly because I know how this analysis will be received by colleagues I respect. 

But recent events have made this conversation unavoidable. The Trump administration's executive orders targeting FEMA reform, the unprecedented scrutiny following major disasters like the LA fires and Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and the fracturing of professional discourse I've witnessed firsthand have convinced me that emergency management faces a moment of reckoning. 

We can either have this conversation now, on our own terms, or have it forced upon us by external pressures that may not be as generous with nuance or context. The profession I care about deserves the chance to examine itself honestly before others do it for us. This isn't an attack on emergency management or the dedicated professionals who serve communities every day. It's a call for the kind of difficult self-reflection that mature professions must undertake when external pressures reveal internal contradictions that can no longer be ignored. The conversation will be uncomfortable. It needs to happen anyway.

Something revealing happened in the emergency management community during recent major disasters. 

While response teams were still conducting life-saving operations, a different kind of storm was brewing on social media—not just the usual conspiracy theories about FEMA camps or government overreach, but professionals within emergency management questioning each other's authority and credentials in public forums.

The profession that prides itself on coordination was tearing itself apart in public view. And it was just getting started.

"Absolutely the worst that I have ever seen," FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said in early October, describing the misinformation that followed Hurricanes Helene and Milton. But she was talking about external attacks—conspiracy theories and political weaponization of disaster response. What she didn't mention, what emergency management leaders don't want to discuss, is that the most damaging criticism isn't coming from outside the profession anymore.

It's coming from within.

The Fracture Lines

Watch emergency management social media during any major disaster now, and you'll witness something unprecedented: a profession cannibalizing itself under pressure. The external criticism—false claims that "FEMA is giving victims of Hurricane Helene only $750," that "FEMA is confiscating supplies," that the agency prioritizes certain groups over others—has created internal fractures that reveal uncomfortable truths about what emergency management actually is and who gets to speak for it.

University of Akron's Stacy Willett noted that "what has changed is both the increase and speed of miscommunication." She was talking about public misinformation, but the same dynamic is destroying professional unity within emergency management itself. Criticism moves faster than coordination, and the profession is losing the ability to present a unified response to legitimate questions about its effectiveness.

The stakes couldn't be higher. With 90 major disaster declarations in 2024—one of the worst years on record according to the International Institute for Environment and Development—and Administrator Criswell acknowledging that "we no longer have disaster seasons – we are busy year-round," emergency management faces unprecedented demand for its services while simultaneously losing internal coherence about what those services actually are.

In North Carolina, FEMA had to pause relief operations because of threats against personnel—a man was arrested for threatening employees after consuming false social media reports. But while emergency managers focused on external threats, the profession was quietly eating itself alive over questions of authenticity, authority, and accountability that it had never adequately addressed.

The Authority Problem

Here's what emergency management doesn't want you to know: nobody can agree on who actually represents the profession anymore.

Is it the federal coordinators who control the big money and policy decisions but rarely see ground-level operations? The state directors with comprehensive responsibilities but limited operational experience? Local emergency managers who run the day-to-day response but lack broader perspective? Academics who study the field but get dismissed for not "working real disasters"? Consultants who advise multiple agencies but serve no community directly?

Or—and this represents a newer development that concerns traditional emergency managers—individuals who have built substantial social media followings by discussing disasters and emergency management topics? During major disasters, some of these voices achieve greater public reach than official agency communications, effectively shaping how communities understand emergency management operations.

Traditional emergency managers hate this development, but they can't ignore it. When official communications struggle to reach audiences beyond professional circles, and influencers regularly achieve viral reach discussing the same topics, who really speaks for emergency management?

The question is fracturing professional conferences, social media discussions, and even workplace conversations. It's a crisis of authority happening precisely when the profession most needs to speak with a unified voice.

The Great Deception

But the authority crisis is just a symptom. The real problem runs deeper, to the heart of how emergency management has presented itself to the world versus what it actually does when disasters strike.

For years—decades, actually—emergency management has sold itself using heroic language. Budget requests emphasize "saving lives." Grant applications highlight "protecting communities." Conference presentations celebrate emergency managers as "guardians of public safety." Recruitment materials promise careers dedicated to "serving others in their darkest hours."

The messaging worked perfectly when emergency management operated mostly behind the scenes. It secured funding, attracted talent, and built institutional support. Politicians loved writing checks to "life savers." Communities supported agencies that promised to "protect" them. Media coverage celebrated emergency managers as unsung heroes working tirelessly to keep people safe.

Then Hurricane Helene hit, and the messaging collided with reality.

When false claims spread that FEMA assistance was limited to $750, the agency's response was technically accurate—that amount represented immediate assistance for basic needs, with additional programs available for housing and other damage. But the clarification missed what people actually wanted to know: Did you help us when we needed it most?

When questions arose about response coordination and resource allocation, emergency management voices emphasized jurisdictional boundaries, mutual aid protocols, and inter-agency complexity. All technically correct, but completely beside the point. The public was asking a simpler question: Did the system work when lives were on the line?

That's when the deception became clear. When accountability arrived, emergency management retreated from heroic language to bureaucratic explanations: "We coordinate response efforts." "We facilitate resource allocation." "We support primary responders." "We manage processes rather than control outcomes."

The "life saving" talk disappeared, replaced by careful descriptions of roles, authorities, and limitations. Emergency management had spent years marketing itself as the cavalry, then acted surprised when people expected them to ride to the rescue.

The Scarcity Secret

The contradiction runs even deeper than messaging problems. Emergency management has been hiding a fundamental truth about its evolving role—one that makes the heroic messaging not just misleading, but dishonest.

As emergency management analyst Robert Roller noted in Domestic Preparedness, "the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters coupled with the reemergence of military threats from peer and near-peer adversaries overseas will greatly reduce the ability of emergency managers to meet the needs of disaster survivors." The profession is experiencing "a paradigm shift in the primary role of emergency management from the delivery of resources to managing the scarcity of resources and making better use of them."

Read that again. Emergency management is shifting from providing help to rationing help. From resource delivery to resource denial. From "here's what you need" to "sorry, we don't have enough."

But has anyone told the public about this fundamental change? Are budget presentations explaining that emergency management is transitioning from service delivery to scarcity management? Do recruitment materials mention that the job is increasingly about saying "no" rather than "yes"?

Of course not. The profession continues using "life saving" language while privately planning for resource constraints. It promises protection while preparing for inadequacy. It markets hope while managing decline.

This isn't incompetence—it's institutional dishonesty. Emergency management has been selling a product it knows it can't deliver, using language that describes a mission it's quietly abandoning.

The Reckoning

External criticism is forcing these hidden contradictions into the open. When every decision faces real-time public scrutiny, when misinformation spreads faster than official responses, when communities demand immediate answers about life-and-death outcomes, emergency management can't hide behind technical jargon and professional credentials anymore.

The result is a profession in crisis, not just because of external attacks, but because those attacks are exposing internal fractures that were always there. Emergency managers are arguing about authority because they never clearly defined it. They're struggling with messaging because they never aligned their promises with their capabilities. They're fragmenting under pressure because they never built unity around honest principles.

Some emergency managers are adapting by embracing transparency about limitations, consistency in messaging, and proactive community engagement. They're acknowledging the shift from resource delivery to resource management, explaining what coordination actually means, and building trust through honesty rather than heroic promises.

But others are doubling down on the deception, retreating into professional insularity and technical language while continuing to use "life saving" rhetoric when it serves their interests. They're treating external criticism as evidence of public ignorance rather than professional accountability, and viewing internal dissent as disloyalty rather than necessary reform.

What Emergency Management Refuses to Admit

Here's the truth emergency management doesn't want to face: the burden of criticism is revealing that the profession has been living a lie for years. It promised more than it could deliver, claimed credit for outcomes beyond its control, and built institutional support on messaging that didn't match operational reality.

The external pressure isn't destroying emergency management—it's exposing what was already broken. The misinformation campaigns aren't creating professional divisions—they're revealing fault lines that were always there. The criticism isn't unfair—it's long overdue.

Emergency management can either use this moment to rebuild itself on honest foundations—admitting limitations, clarifying roles, and aligning messaging with capabilities—or it can continue fragmenting while communities lose faith in institutions that promise protection but deliver coordination.

The choice isn't just about professional survival. It's about whether emergency management can evolve into something communities actually need, or whether it will remain trapped by deceptions of its own making.

Communities facing increasing disasters deserve better than a profession that can't decide what it does, who speaks for it, or whether its promises mean anything. They deserve emergency managers who are honest about capabilities, clear about limitations, and united around serving the public good—even when that service involves uncomfortable truths about what protection actually means in an age of permanent crisis.

The burden of criticism has arrived. How emergency management carries it will determine whether the profession has a future worth defending—or whether it will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.

References:

1. Politico. "'The worst I have ever seen': Disinformation chaos hammers FEMA." October 8, 2024.
2. PolitiFact. "FEMA conspiracy theories have existed for decades. The internet has amplified them." October 22, 2024.
3. CNN. "As Trump works to cut FEMA, data shows there was a major disaster declaration every four days in 2024." March 24, 2025.
4. International Institute for Environment and Development analysis, as reported by CNN, March 2025.
5. Roller, Robert J. "The Future of Emergency Management: Managing Scarcity." Domestic Preparedness, June 20, 2023.
6. Reuters. "FEMA deploys to rough terrain after Helene as it faces criticism, fights misinformation." October 9, 2024.
7. FEMA. "Addressing Hurricane Helene Rumors and Scams." October 8, 2024. FEMA.gov.
8. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Disaster-Related Misinformation Isn't Unique to Helene and Milton." October 11, 2024.