Emergency Operations: What Katrina, Michael, and COVID Taught Me

During COVID emergency operations at the San Antonio Food Bank, we had 72 hours to completely reinvent how we delivered food.

No congregate meals. No in person distribution lines. A vulnerable population that could not leave home. 16 counties. Five specialized teams. National Guard coordination.

We pulled it off.

Not because we had the perfect plan. Because we had the relationships.

That is the lesson most organizations miss about disaster preparedness:

Your emergency response is only as strong as the relationships you built before the emergency.

WHAT 3 DISASTERS TAUGHT ME

Katrina, Hurricane Michael, and COVID all taught the same lesson from different angles:

1. Katrina: Pre existing relationships are oxygen When the systems collapsed, the partners we already knew were the ones who answered the phone. The ones we had not built relationships with did not return calls. Disaster is the wrong time to start networking.
2. Hurricane Michael: Logistics is a relationship business When I deployed to the disaster zone with Feeding America, the warehousing solutions and distribution hubs we located were all built on existing partner trust. The trucks moved because someone vouched for us.
3. COVID: Speed of decision matters more than perfection We did not have time to build consensus. We had time to act, document the decision, and adjust. Organizations with clear decision rights moved fast. Organizations with shared ownership stalled.

THE 5 PILLARS OF EMERGENCY OPERATIONS READINESS

1. A current emergency operations plan Updated annually. Tested twice a year. A plan that has not been tested is not a plan. It is a document.
2. A partner network mapped before the crisis Who do you call for warehousing? Cold storage? Volunteers? Transportation? If you cannot answer those four questions in 60 seconds, your network is not mapped.
3. Defined incident command and decision rights Who decides? Who approves? Who communicates? When the disaster hits, the org chart needs to function under pressure.
4. Communication protocols that work when systems are down Phone trees, group texts, backup contacts. Not just the things that depend on the internet working.
5. Staff cross training for surge capacity When a third of your team cannot get to work, who covers what? Cross trained teams absorb shocks. Specialized teams break.

WHAT I LEARNED ON THE DALLAS COUNTY MASS CARE TASK FORCE

For seven years I served as the North Texas Food Bank representative on the Dallas County Mass Care Task Force. American Red Cross. The Salvation Army. Volunteer Center of North Texas. FEMA when the federal piece was active.

The single biggest insight from that work: in a disaster, agencies do not coordinate the way they do on paper. They coordinate the way they have practiced.

If your organization is not in the room during the planning, you are not in the room during the response.

WHERE TO START

If your last emergency operations plan was written more than 12 months ago, or you cannot remember when it was last tested, here is where to start:

1. Run the Disaster Preparedness Scorecard A free self assessment that tells you exactly where your readiness gaps are. Download it free at wendlingconsulting.com.
2. Map your partner network this week Who do you call in the first 4 hours? The first 24? The first week? Write the names down. If you cannot, build the relationships now.
3. Get into the room Find your county VOAD or mass care task force. Show up before the disaster. That is when the relationships get built.

If you are waiting until disaster strikes to build your network, you have already waited too long.