When disasters collide: Building disaster resilience for a future of simultaneous crises

For decades, emergency management has largely been built around a straightforward assumption: when one community faces a major disaster, help can come from somewhere else. But as costly weather and climate disasters and other natural disasters become more frequent and increasingly overlap across the country, that assumption is being tested in new ways.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s long-running tracking of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters illustrates just how much the risk landscape has evolved.  The question is no longer whether state and local communities can respond to a single major disaster. Instead, it is whether the nation’s emergency management system is prepared to respond when several large-scale emergencies unfold simultaneously. Building disaster resilience requires emergency preparedness strategies that can adapt when multiple large-scale emergencies occur at once.

Building disaster resilience in a system designed for one crisis at a time

Emergency management systems have traditionally been organized around isolated events rather than building disaster resilience for simultaneous disasters. When a state experiences a major disaster, neighboring jurisdictions, nonprofit organizations, and the federal government provide additional personnel, equipment, and technical expertise through mutual aid agreements.

That approach works well when unaffected partners have resources available to share. Multiple natural disasters occurring simultaneously change the equation for emergency management preparedness. If several states are responding to hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, or extreme heat at the same time, there simply are fewer resources available to move where they are needed most.

A recent example was the 2024 challenge of simultaneously responding to catastrophic flooding in Texas, dozens of large wildfires in the West, and hazardous wildfire smoke affecting more than 100 million people across the Midwest and East.

The result: a system under increasing strain, highlighting the growing need for disaster resilience.

Emergency management preparedness depends on more than emergency response

When discussions turn to emergency management funding, the focus often centers on response capabilities. But preparedness begins long before disaster strikes.

Many state and local emergency management agencies depend on funding not only for programs, but also for highly specialized staff responsible for planning, emergency management training, conducting exercises, coordinating partners, and managing incidents that strengthen preparedness. These functions are easy to overlook because their success is measured by what doesn’t happen.

Communities rarely notice the plans that prevented confusion, the training that enabled agencies to work together seamlessly, or the scenario based planning exercises that revealed weaknesses before a real emergency occurred. These ongoing emergency preparedness activities play a critical role in building disaster resilience. When funding for those activities declines, the consequences often remain hidden until a major disaster exposes gaps in readiness.

Simultaneous disasters multiply every emergency management challenge

A single disaster can overwhelm one jurisdiction. Multiple disasters can stress the entire emergency management system, making disaster resilience more important than ever.

Mutual aid remains one of the nation’s greatest strengths for emergency management, but it depends on available capacity. When neighboring states are facing their own emergencies, experienced personnel, specialized equipment, and technical resources become much harder to share.

Personnel shortages are particularly challenging. Many agencies have a relatively small number of experienced emergency managers qualified to serve in key incident command and coordination roles. If those individuals are already deployed to one incident, responding effectively to a second or third event becomes significantly more difficult. Strengthening disaster resilience requires sustained investment in personnel, planning, and emergency management funding before disasters occur.

Building disaster resilience for a more complex future

As disaster risks evolve, resilience and emergency management preparedness strategies must evolve with them. That means investing in emergency management resilience before disasters occur, strengthening partnerships with private-sector and nonprofit organizations, developing reserve pools of trained emergency management workforce capacity, and expanding mutual aid relationships beyond traditional regional networks.

Just as importantly, agencies will need to prioritize preparedness activities supported by sustainable emergency management funding that provide the greatest return on investment, ensuring that planning, training, and continuous improvement remain core capabilities even during periods of fiscal constraint.

The bottom line: the future of emergency management will require greater disaster resilience and more flexibility than ever before. The question is not whether multiple disasters will occur simultaneously, because they already are. The challenge is ensuring that state and local emergency management systems are prepared to respond when every region needs help at the same time while continuing to strengthen emergency management preparedness across communities.

Carlene Hastings is Emergency Management Director at Eagle Hill Consulting, where she advises public sector organizations on emergency management, resilience, preparedness, and organizational readiness.