This newsletter is a compilation of recent disaster ~things~ that I think are cool, important, or otherwise of interest to people who are intrigued with disaster (broadly defined). There’s a little something for everyone!
[This might just be the longest newsletter yet. I want to flag that there is a petition at the end that you may want to sign.]
It’s time to discuss The Fascists in Florida.
The Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM), under the direction of Kevin Guthrie, has built, and is overseeing, a concentration camp in the Everglades at the behest of Governor DeSantis and the Trump administration. I understand that makes me sound like a FEMA camp conspiracist, but as Naomi Klein explained, here we are in Mirror World.
In June, Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the state would build an “immigration detention facility” in the Everglades, named “Alligator Alcatraz”.
Immediately, concerns were raised along three lines. First, the legality of state involvement in immigration enforcement, which is typically a federal responsibility. Second, the physical safety of individuals detained in the facility. (As a report from Human Rights Watch outlines, detention centers throughout Florida violate international law. Why would this one be better?) Third, the environmental and cultural consequences of building the facility in an ecologically important and fragile location.
As a person concerned with human rights, I was disturbed by the entire thing. As a disaster researcher, though, I was initially most focused on the immediate safety of the people who would be detained in the facility. In emergency management, it is understood that people who are imprisoned or detained during a disaster often face greater risk because of an inherent lack of autonomy. Yes, as many pointed out, hurricane season, but also, you are in the middle of wetlands. Flooding happens regularly, even in small storms. There are tornadoes and extreme heat, and other hazards that would be difficult to survive.
But of course, it is those dangerous conditions that are the appeal. Federal and state officials gloated over saving money on security. Who could escape past the alligators, pythons, and panthers? Incidentally, “Alligator Bait” is an old racist slur. “Alcatraz”, of course, evokes the ruthless history of the country’s most notorious prison.
As Republican officials gleefully laid out their brutal plan, others began to use the counter-name “Alligator Auschwitz". The announcement of “Alligator Alcatraz” was met with a celebration of cruelty among Republicans. DHS posted AI memes of alligators in ICE hats. Trump supporters took tourist photos in front of the “Alligator Alcatraz” sign. The Florida Republican Party sold merch. The extent of barbarism, even for a group of people who now have a well-documented history of depravity, was jarring.
To be clear, supporters of “Alligator Alcatraz”, including the President, have said they think it is okay if immigrants are eaten by alligators.
As if this was not bad enough, my horror grew when I learned the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) would be responsible for building and operating the facility—an exceptional departure from the mission of emergency management.
In our field, we understand the power of a name – we call it “Hurricane Katrina and the levee failure”, “The BP Oil Disaster”, and “the Norfolk Southern Train Derailment” to correctly identify cause and responsibility. Given the gravity of this newsletter’s subject, I have taken exceptional care in my word choice: This facility is not just a detention center, it is a concentration camp.
I am intentionally using this term (one not to be thrown around lightly) because that is what concentration camp experts have said it is. Specifically, Andrea Pitzer, the author of “One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps,” defines them as “mass civilian detention without real trials targeting vulnerable groups for political gain based on ethnicity, race, religion or political affiliation rather than for crimes committed.” As you’ll read below, this fits. From here on, I will be referring to what is officially called “Alligator Alcatraz” as “The Florida Everglades Concentration Camp” or “the camp”.
I assume that you, like me, have a moral objection to the existence of concentration camps. I assume that you, like me, intuitively know why concentration camps are wrong. I assume, like me, you don’t need to be told that people who run concentration camps are bad people. I assume that you, like me, understand why emergency management should have absolutely nothing to do with the building and operation of concentration camps. But just to be sure, let’s walk through this together.
Building A Concentration Camp
Across the country, masked men, often lacking identification, warrants, and explanations, are picking people up off the streets and disappearing them. This includes people who are a part of our field. In California, Home Depot parking lots where people go to find work, including construction efforts to rebuild LA have been targeted. Without immigrants, disaster recovery will become even harder and, in some places, won’t happen. In New Orleans, over a dozen people working on a critical flood mitigation project for the city were taken by ICE. Slowing down flood mitigation projects in New Orleans has, historically, not led to great results. Most recently, CBP arrested two firefighters working an active wildfire in Washington State. They really want to watch the country burn.
As a justification, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told us the Florida Everglades Concentration Camp would be reserved for “the worst scumbags”. The president said it would hold “the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet”.
Federal and state officials have been less than forthcoming about who is detained at the camp. Based on public records, it appears that at or near its most populated, hundreds of people taken to the camp had no criminal convictions. Even among those who did, the offenses were mostly things like traffic violations, possession, and illegal reentry. Personally, I don’t think criminality is relevant. People convicted of crimes still have a right to due process and medical care, but I point it out because other people seem to think it matters. Either way, vicious scumbags they are not.
What lawyers and journalists have said these records indicate is that people are being brought to the camp based primarily on ethnicity, rather than criminal background. This is mass racial profiling. As the concentration camp definition notes, these are vulnerable groups being targeted based on ethnicity. Amnesty International contextualized the camp as a “grotesque extension of Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant agenda - designed not for justice, but for suffering”.
And suffering there is.
As soon as state and federal officials announced the camp, Kevin Guthrie began to use “the state’s emergency management tools and funding to build, staff and operate the detention facility”. Described as “the engine behind” the camp, FDEM wielded their gaggle of disaster contractors to build the concentration camp in eight days. When they were done, a collection of tents, trailers, and barbed wire chain-link fences sprawled across the little airstrip in the Everglades. The site is big enough to house 3,000 people with additional space for 1,000 staff.
Once opened, the list of inhumane conditions began stacking up. Reporters found people piled in 30-to a cage. Some people being held there claimed to have been stripped naked anytime they are moved to another cage. They are living under constant fluorescent lighting, leading some to complain of sleep deprivation. Others reported a lack of consistent edible food, with some receiving only one meal per day and others finding their food laced with worms. Detainees reported clearing clogged toilets with their bare hands.
The people being held there may be less concerned with alligators and more worried about the camp being full of mosquitoes. West Nile is present in this part of the country and can have severe long-term health consequences. Reportedly, people have not consistently been given their medication and have not received reliable medical assistance for chronic conditions. One person told reporters he had developed fungus on his feet after being forced to walk through standing floodwaters. At the same time, there reportedly is not enough water for detainees to shower regularly, with some having to wait 3-4 days. The air conditioning is inconsistent, a deadly prospect in August. As you’d imagine, the people being held report deteriorating mental health.
These accounts reported to the media from detainees via family members and lawyers were confirmed by a former worker who was fired after catching COVID (add that to the health concerns). She described it as an “oversized kennel”. The conditions for workers were not much better than those of the people being held there (the world’s smallest violin).
In all, there has been very little oversight, with the ACLU calling it a “shadow prison.” Florida lawmakers had to file a lawsuit to gain access to the facility after initially being denied entry to the camp, which they believed to be “an attempt to conceal human rights violations” from the public eye. The ACLU sued DHS over a lack of access to legal counsel and due process, another hallmark of a concentration camp. Lawyers who tried to see their clients in the facility were at times barred from entering by armed members of the Florida National Guard. Even people held in the actual Alcatraz had due process.
FDEM deputy communication director Stephanie Hartman called allegations of these types of conditions “completely false” and “complete fabrications”.
Bet.
As quickly as the camp opened, environmental groups, the Miccosukee Tribe, and various immigrant rights groups brought forward lawsuits to close it. In mid-August, a federal judge ordered the state to stop building the camp and shut it down within 60-days. Last Thursday, an email from Guthrie to a Rabbi looking to serve as a chaplain at the camp was given to the press. In it, Guthrie noted that he expected the camp would be empty within a few days. However, the BBC reported yesterday that perhaps as many as 50% of detainees remain. Ultimately, as of this writing, the exact status is unknown.
State and federal officials are appealing the decision. It certainly seems possible, if not probable, that the camp may be reopened at some point. Regardless, FDEM has now moved on to building a similar camp named “Deportation Depot” at the Baker Correctional Institution. Therefore, it is incumbent upon those of us in emergency management to document and clarify what happened in the Everglades, demand accountability, and work to prevent it from happening again.
An Abdication of Mission
Even if you agree that immigrants should be indiscriminately rounded up and deported (yikes), the fact that this particular camp in this particular location was built by an emergency management agency is astounding. The inherent risk of this site (including the obvious climate change connections), the materials used to build the camp itself, the speed in doing so, and the bypassing of safety regulations is a glaring formula for disaster. They took a group of people who are among the most socially vulnerable and then locked them in literal cages in the middle of one of the highest-risk locations in the entire country and during the most dangerous times of the year for both heat and hurricanes.
Not for nothing, but FDEM’s actions also threaten to undermine decades of mitigation efforts throughout the Everglades, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of great environmental and practical value. Many billions of dollars in federal and state taxes have been spent over the course of decades to protect this land and ensure it helps protect Floridians from storms and flooding.
If my students turned in a plan or exercise assignment that mirrored the decision-making here, they would fail.
It didn’t take an emergency management expert to notice this was a risky situation. In a press conference on opening day, Guthrie sarcastically responded to these concerns: “For those people that don’t think we’re taking that into consideration. This is Florida, by the way… we have a hurricane plan.” He insisted the camp could withstand Category 2 winds. Less than 24 hours later, a regular ole South Florida rainstorm dropped just an inch and a half of rain. It was enough to bring standing water into the Camp. If you know anything about the Everglades, which I assume any director of FDEM does, this sounds about right.
This is simply a stunning violation of the mission of emergency management and alone should be enough for the rest of the field to call for leadership change at FDEM. Anyone concerned with risk prevention would never go along with this! It would be like a heart surgeon opening you up and pouring bacon fat into your arteries. For god’s sake, FEMA won’t even put trailers in floodzones!!
FDEM’s dereliction of duty here went so far as to not only operate outside of the agency’s mission by participating in immigration enforcement, but also actively created immense risk in a jurisdiction for which they are responsible. But wait, it gets worse!
FDEM’s leadership in building and operating the camp undermines the other legitimate work of the agency. It is entirely plausible to suggest that Florida may be less prepared for future disasters because of the camp, and that ongoing recovery and mitigation efforts across the state have been impacted. One reason is because FDEM resources are being used directly in service to the camp. For example, Guthrie is doing site visits and Stephanie Hartman is doing press about the facility. This is not just a matter of signing a few checks. Every minute spent on the camp, is time not spent on other critical emergency management needs across the state -- of which there is no shortage.
This debacle also undermines FDEM’s relationships and public image. Relationships built on trust are often the single greatest resource in emergency management. We know immigrants can be among the most vulnerable to disaster and that certain legal statuses can make it difficult to receive disaster aid. The long held concerns about the ability of undocumented people to safely stay at community shelters has grown substantially this year after the Trump administration eliminated disaster settings as protected from immigration enforcement. There are fears among immigrants, community organizations, emergency managers, and definitely me that disaster shelters in some places, and especially in Florida, are no longer safe.
It is not only that immigrant communities can no longer trust that FDEM is interested in their physical safety and well-being, but also that the agency has positioned itself as their adversary. There are very good reasons why emergency management does not have a law enforcement mission, and this is one of them. Let me say that again: emergency management does not have a law enforcement mission. (Take your EM offices out of your goddamn sheriff’s offices.)
Here, FDEM has broken trust not only with immigrant communities but also with local emergency managers and local governments. Unbelievably, FDEM did not inform local emergency managers about the camp. I would encourage you to read through this PBS news story because the emails are, frankly, insane. The state would not even let Miami-Dade County evaluate the plans before building began. Look, if you’ve ever talked to a local Florida emergency manager, you know there is often a complicated relationship with FDEM — as is true of many states. The lack of professional courtesy is still worth noting because it indicates further entrenched tensions between state and locals in Florida that could become bigger problems in the future.
The work of emergency management is hard enough on our best day, so to torpedo your relationship with your colleagues, vulnerable groups, and large swaths of the public is certainly a choice! While there are more people than I would care to admit who are likely impressed by FDEM’s efforts, clearly, many others are not. To allow an emergency management agency to be politicized in this way undermines the authority of that agency to a not insignificant part of the population. Leaders of emergency management agencies have a responsibility to enact the mission of those agencies to the best of their ability.
Surely there are other consequences not yet made public as well. I sympathize with the folks who wanted to work at FDEM for the purpose of actually helping disaster survivors because I know there are many. I hope other emergency management agencies hire them.
FDEM’s involvement in this camp has made all Floridians less safe, including the ones whose hatred of a 15-year-old Brown kid who likes reading comic books is greater than their fear of a hurricane.
Faking A Crisis
It is important to understand the depth with which Florida’s emergency management system has been used to instigate this cruelty. It is not just that FDEM was the agency tasked with building and operating the facility and that their disaster contractors did the actual work. The entire legal foundation on which DeSantis is claiming his authority on immigration enforcement is via the state’s emergency declaration authorities.
DeSantis first declared an “immigration emergency” in January 2023 and has renewed it over a dozen times. (Incidentally, it does appear this declaration violates state law, which requires an audit after one year, which has not been done.) In Florida, the governor can declare a renewable 60-day emergency, giving him the authority to do things like award contracts with less oversight and deliberation. This is useful and necessary in disasters when tasks like debris removal need to happen quickly. In general, declaration authorities are critical for enabling effective and efficient emergency management efforts. The argument for keeping these powers quite broad to allow for flexibility in unforeseen circumstances is strong. Broad declaration authorities are most often used in good faith, but of course, there is always the risk that Floridians will elect a fascist to Tallahassee.
In this case, it would seem DeSantis is using emergency powers as a tool to bypass public input and legal protections, a decidedly undemocratic use of these powers. It is through this emergency declaration that he is funneling state resources to immigration enforcement. They used it to justify waiving the environmental impact study requirements in the Everglades and ignored the concerns of Tribal governments. It allowed FDEM to seize the land for the camp, owned by Miami-Dade County, without payment because it was for the purpose of “immigration enforcement-related activities”. Guthrie noted his support of doing so saying, “Time is of the essence. We must act swiftly to ensure readiness and continuity in our statewide operations to assist the federal government with immigration enforcement”. It has allowed for the suspension of building code requirements and the competitive bidding process, favoring speed over accountability.
One legal problem here is the manipulation of the word “emergency”. Ah, yes, our old friend: What is a disaster? I’ll spare you that conversation because I know that we all know this isn’t one.
Certainly, there is a need to reform the U.S. immigration system to better meet the needs of the people who navigate it. Some aspects of the U.S. immigration system can tip into crisis. For example, when the surge of unaccompanied children overwhelmed services at the border in 2014, FEMA was brought in to assist with mass care. Critically, the goal in these cases was for FEMA to help meet the needs of the children while other agencies worked to get them through temporary immigration shelters and place them in more permanent living situations. As Fugate said, “We need to help these kids. I don’t care about the policy. I don’t care about the politics. I don’t care about your stances on immigration. These were children. They were in horrible conditions. We can do better than that.” Here, everything hinges on your goal: to provide stability and care versus detain and terrorize.
A cursory analysis suggests DeSantis is engaging in these political spectacles to maintain national media attention on himself for a future Presidential run. Dehumanizing immigrants is central to his political platform. (This is the “for political gain” part of the concentration camp definition.)
Entwined with the political is the financial. As one democratic lawmaker said, this is “Gator Grift”. I assume you already understand this part because you have had almost 20 years to read “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” but let’s take a moment to follow the money.
It turns out building a concentration camp in the middle of the wetlands is expensive -- even with the money you save on security. DHS estimates one year of camp operation will cost $450 million. That’s more than the entire country’s EMPG funding. At last count, $245 million has been spent. There seems to be a question of eligibility over whether the camp is temporary or permanent. There are also differing legal implications if this is a federally funded camp vs. a state funded camp. So which is it?
There have been conflicting reports about who is funding -- and who will ultimately fund -- the camp. Some reporting has said FDEM is funding the camp. In documents reviewed by TPM, FDEM was listed as the purchaser on all camp contracts so they certainly are the ones spending the money. The money itself (as best as I can tell) though, does not come from FDEM’s budget but rather from a $500 million a year emergency fund (with very little oversight) that the state legislature gave to DeSantis to fund his immigration stunts, etc. (Florida also has a $15 billion rainy day fund to keep an eye on.)
At various points, both federal and state officials have said that FEMA will reimburse Florida for at least some of the expenses related to the camp. At times, it has been reported that this will be done through a Shelter and Services Grant. (You’ll remember this program from Helene last year and NYC this year. You know, the immigration funding that Republicans found to be an affront to the American taxpayer? Uh-huh. This damn program has become the bane of my existence.) Specifically, Noem told reporters in June that the Shelter and Services Grant program would largely fund the camp.
In early July, the Miami Herald reported that Florida could apply for a grant from FEMA’s “Detention Support Grant Program,” which had $600 million available. I cannot figure out what this grant program is or even if it really exists. It seems to have been publicly announced on sam.gov this summer, but it is no longer posted. FEMA has not said anything publicly about it as far as I can see. I did check with the remarkably few people I know who still work at DHS/FEMA for the sake of due diligence, and none of them had any information. There might also be some bad reporting going on here, too, in terms of mixing up grant programs, etc? I simply do not have enough hours in the day to try and figure this out, but my guess is that if this program exists, the funding comes from CBP, and DHS has tasked FEMA with administering it.
While we might not fully understand where the money is coming from, we do have a pretty good sense of where it is going.
This camp has been brought to you by a range of disaster contractors who are subjected to shockingly little oversight. I’ve long called these contractors our “Shadow Emergency Management System”. They are so intertwined with public emergency management that it can be hard, if not impossible, to tell where government emergency management agencies begin and the disaster contractors end. Very little investigation -- reporting, criminal, research, or otherwise -- has been done on these contractors as compared to the extent that they are responsible for emergency management in Florida and beyond.
I recommend reading this Orlando Sentinel article, which shows how Florida Republicans funnel disaster funds to politically connected contractors. TLDR: private contracts are being given to businesses owned by Republican donors. This is an issue much bigger than the Florida Everglades Concentration Camp, but it’s very much present here too.
In following the long-honored tradition of the DeSantis administration, the state has refused to be transparent about camp funding, and this time, Guthrie seems to be in the middle of covering it up. This includes an incident where documents from the Florida Accountability Contract Tracking System were removed. Guthrie himself told reporters that the files were taken down to protect “trade secrets”. Legal experts dispute this justification.
A Tool of Authoritarianism
Building a concentration camp in service of lining donors’ pockets and pursuing national political careers is bad enough, but there is something much worse -- and bigger -- going on here. Like the Trump administration, DeSantis is instituting a well-trod authoritarian playbook in Florida and using FDEM to do it.
The Right is inventing crises to justify their use of force, the suspension of civil rights, and the deployment of troops to American cities. In Florida, DeSantis is following the path of people like Stephen Miller, who are the ultimate architects of immigration crisis propaganda. People like Miller are not “a little bit racist” or “economically conservative”; they are white supremacists steeped in white Nationalism. I emphasize this because what it means is that Kevin Guthrie is using FDEM to implement the agenda of White Nationalists.
I fear some folks in our field are still not grasping that we are living in a vastly different political context than even a year ago. This was not a normal transition to a new presidential administration. If you’re finding yourself in denial about how perilous our political situation has become, I encourage you to read this piece called “America tips into fascism” written by emergency management and homeland security- favorite Garret Graff. We are operating within dire political circumstances.
There is no time left for debate. There can be no compromise on political differences when one side’s politics is rooted in revoking other people’s human rights. There are many things in our field related to philosophical differences or how we approach emergency management that we can, and do, through constructive dialogue, but in my opinion, concentration camps are not one of them.
Pick a side.
We Need To Talk About Kevin
Part of accepting that we have crossed into a different world is realizing that people whom you may have previously gotten along with well enough, people you consider colleagues or even friends, may choose the wrong side. Maybe for a while, you look past some of the actions they take. Maybe you think they are just passively going along with their bosses. Following orders. At some point, though, you step back and what you see is a pattern of behavior that shows their active participation.
Kevin Gutherie, a graduate of Liberty University with a background in law enforcement, took over FDEM in 2021 after Jared Moskowitz left for Congress. Since taking over the agency, he has developed a habit of wielding FDEM as the operational arm of DeSantis’ political stunts. The building and operation of a concentration camp is a natural extension of Guthrie’s history of transforming FDEM into an immigration enforcement agency, operating not only in Florida but nationally and internationally.
Remember that it was under the direction of Guthrie that DeSantis used Florida taxpayer money in 2022 to send migrants from Texas (i.e., not even florida!) to Massachusetts and California. The obvious political stunt left the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency scrambling to stand up services to support the new arrivals. At the time, Disaster Researchers for Justice issued a statement on the program, which California’s attorney general called “state sanctioned kidnapping”.
In an interview from last year that touches on this “Unauthorized Alien Transport Program” Guthrie notes they stopped running flights only after spending $700,000 trying to find people willing to be relocated (and avoid claims of kidnapping, one might presume). In the end, they found only 10-12 people. He notes that the administration is determining next steps, including the possibility of going back to the Texas border to find people to move. He didn’t mention that at the time of the interview, there were ongoing lawsuits over the incident.
He also oversaw the evacuation of Americans from Haiti and Israel on multiple occasions. While some people involved were Florida residents, others were not. Even so, I cannot fathom why a state emergency management agency is doing the state department’s job. Incidentally, the contractor initially hired by FDEM to complete the Haiti evacuation was fired by Guthrie “mid-mission”. Court filings note two “politically connected” vendors were given the contracts before FDEM eventually returned to the initial vendor when the others were unable to complete the evacuations. Then, another lawsuit against FDEM.
In April, local outlets reported on a memo Guthrie had sent sheriffs across the state directing them to gather data on anyone they suspected of lacking legal status. The statue cited is one used for gathering data during (real) disasters, according to local reports. Incredibly, Sheriffs pushed back against the memo. While the primary complaint was that they felt FDEM had usurped their authority, they also noted that parts of the directive were illegal.
I do not know what Guthrie thinks about all of this, but I do know that he has given no indication publicly that he takes issue with any of this. I cannot find a single interview, video, or comment in which Guthrie indicates any disagreement. He demonstrates complete alignment with the DeSantis administration. He refers to building the camp positively as an “exercise” for hurricane season, a “dress rehearsal”.
Each of these actions during his tenure alone raises questions about Guthrie’s leadership. And yet, in every case, he has faced nearly no resistance save a small handful of (almost always) local reporters. He is operating with almost no oversight or accountability.
Put within the broader national political context, Guthrie’s actions as the director of FDEM are part of a larger project that has left democracy in the rear-view mirror. His actions are authoritarian.
A Blueprint
It is past time to shake the old adage of our field that Florida has the best emergency management system in the country (a claim which has always struck me as tempting fate). Maybe they did once, but you cannot look at Guthrie’s tenure at FDEM and still believe this.
On the camp’s opening day, sitting next to DeSantis and Trump, Guthrie proudly told reporters, “Getting things done quickly, efficiently and correctly is at the core of our mission”. I’d offer that the definition of “things” here seems important. No one locks people in cages quicker than FDEM. No one serves worms for dinner as efficiently as FDEM. Just because you can build a concentration camp doesn’t mean you should. What a reputation.
Kevin Guthrie is not some folksy emergency manager who tripped and fell into the FDEM director seat. He is not your LinkedIn buddy. Instead, he is among the most powerful people in all of emergency management. He holds the purse strings of billions of dollars in disaster contracts in a politically powerful state. He is one of two state directors with a seat on the FEMA Review Council and has the ear of the Trump administration. And, he is strategically using his position in Florida to develop a blueprint for all of U.S. emergency management.
I know this because he keeps telling us this is what he is doing.
Guthrie often notes that his goal for FDEM is to lead “the industry”. On building the camp, he said “We simply just want to be the best at what we do in the nation.” In a Congressional hearing earlier this year Guthrie noted that FDEM had, “ become a model for the future of emergency management.” Later in this same testimony he lays out a plan for emergency management reform in which large parts are antithetical to what the research has found to make for effective emergency management. He parrots many of the dangerous, half-baked ideas of Project 2025.
Guthrie is right in that he has created a blueprint for emergency management. The question for the rest of us is whether this is the blueprint we intend to follow. Is FDEM the agency we want to replicate around the country? Is this the vision for the future of emergency management?
If you have read my book, you will know that my motivation to do this work comes from witnessing disaster injustice and believing a more effective, efficient, and equitable way of managing disasters is possible -- one that is rooted in human dignity, compassion, and justice. That is still my vision for our future.
In Search of A Moral Backbone
What has happened at FDEM is not a little blip in the history of emergency management. I hope you see the gravity. This is the defining moment for the field of emergency management. It is the moment we decide if we will be a tool of authoritarianism and fascism, or if we defend ourselves, communities, and mission.
When we allow the emergency management system to be co-opted in Florida, or in Texas, or anywhere else, it affects the entire profession. Disasters don’t keep me up at night anymore; instead, it’s the thoughts of the many other sinister ways that our emergency management system could be used to enable an agenda of harm. I know many of you can relate.
The past week of 20-year anniversary Katrina coverage has made it clear we all understand the field is in the middle of an existential operational crisis. Even if the administration backs off from completely closing FEMA, it is hard to imagine the field surviving another Katrina-sized failure. (Thank you to the FEMA employees who signed the Katrina Declaration, BTW.)
Here it is not operational or political questions, but moral ones. Will we allow the system we have all contributed to building be used to cause harm? Will there be enough emergency managers with the courage to turn down orders from fascist governors and an authoritarian President, regardless of consequence? Who is the moral leader of emergency management?
In life there are times when you are asked to do something you don’t personally agree with or find ethically objectionable. Sometimes, making a compromise on something you don’t agree with allows you to do other important work, and so you make that compromise. I’ve done that. You probably have too. But you should also have red lines to know what it is you will not compromise on. We get to choose those red lines; they are different for everyone. For me, building a concentration camp crosses mine. I hope it crosses yours too.
When an emergency manager or an emergency management agency contributes to the spreading of propaganda, a fascist agenda, and facilitates human rights abuses, it undermines the entire profession. All of us in emergency management have the responsibility to hold one another accountable, not only to maintain the integrity of our profession, but to intervene on behalf of the communities we serve before additional harm is caused. No one in this field is above accountability -- nor should any of us expect that we are.
We cannot abdicate our responsibility to hold one another accountable. It is not unprofessional or inappropriate to call out people in our profession who are causing harm. If Kevin Guthrie does not want people writing about how he is running a concentration camp, then he shouldn’t be running a concentration camp.
It is wrong that as a field we are in a position where we must each be each other's judge and jury. No one in our field should be put in a position of risking their careers to call out the dangerous behavior of the most powerful people in our field. One might argue this is one purpose of an association. Yet, in the absence of their leadership thus far, here we are. We must create stronger formal mechanisms to help us hold each other accountable. As always, I welcome a renewed conversation about the need for an enforceable Code of Ethics.
Still, there are things we can do.
A Summary & Call To Action
This has been a lot, so let’s regroup. 1) Concentration camps are bad, and 2) emergency management agencies should not be involved in the running or operating of concentration camps.
For the sake of the public record and to be comprehensive, let us summarize the problems with the Everglades Concentration Camp from an emergency management perspective. Managing a concentration camp is outside the mission of our field. Immigrants are not hazards, they are people. Engaging in immigration enforcement is not mission creep, it is mission re-definition. The actions taken by FDEM contribute to the confusion of emergency management’s public identity. Emergency management is not the military. It is not law enforcement. Emergency management is rooted in a humanitarian mission -- in the United States, our field originated before civil defense, with the Red Cross. When our field is misrepresented in one community, it can negatively affect the profession as a whole (think the misuse of the title “emergency manager” in Flint, Michigan). Emergency managers should not be involved in managing concentration camps because they cause immediate harm and are a violation of human rights. Emergency management agencies that spend time and resources managing a concentration camp are distracted from their other emergency management responsibilities. Managing a concentration camp can break relationships and trust with the targeted communities and others who disagree with the perpetuation of human rights abuses.
It is not enough for us to count on the ghost of Marjory Stoneman Douglas to haunt all the government officials involved with this camp for the rest of their lives. We need to take concrete action.
Talk about it. Tell the people you work with about this. Forward this newsletter to them. Tell your family and friends about it. I think most reasonable people have an awareness of something called “Alligator Alcatraz” and probably assumed it is bad, but I genuinely think most people -- even in our field -- do not understand the central role of FDEM and Kevin Guthrie. I understand why. You have to read relatively deep into the news coverage of the camp to find out FDEM is at the helm. It took me many days of researching to even realize the extent of it myself. But now you know, and because you know, I think you may feel obligated, as I do, to do something about it.
When the actions of one emergency manager threaten the stability and future of the entire profession, it is the responsibility of our associations to take action. To that end, a group of emergency managers have put together a petition for current and former International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) members to ask the board to take action on the issue of emergency managers and agencies being used for immigration enforcement. After reading this newsletter, you will note that Kevin Guthrie and others at FDEM are in violation of IAEM’s code of ethics. As a member of IAEM, I signed the petition, and I hope you will too. The way IAEM responds to this petition will be instructive about its future in our field. After all, if running a concentration camp does not violate your association’s code of ethics, then you don’t have a code of ethics. If you are a current member of IAEM, I will remind you that you also have the right to file an ethics complaint.
Learn more about the intersection of emergency management and immigration. This topic will be the focus of Disaster Researchers for Justice’s fall meetings. Sign up to receive details soon.
You should be outraged over things that are outrageous -- like emergency management agencies building concentration camps -- but that outrage cannot be your end point. You must let it carry you to accountability.
An Administrative Note
I apologize for not including a meme for the second month in a row. I just cannot meme a concentration camp. You understand. Next month, I promise, there will be one even if we’re talking about WWIII.
The End Bits
It’d be cool if you forwarded this newsletter to your friends, post it on social media, or undertake any other form of newsletter sharing you deem appropriate. I’ve heard some of you print out the memes to hang in your emergency management offices! Incredible.
In case you signed up for this newsletter without knowing who I am (a bold choice!), you can listen to this interview with me on Ologies. If you really want to dive in, you can read my book Disasterology: Dispatches From The Frontlines of The Climate Crisis to catch up (here’s a USA Today review). You can order it here and get it as an audiobook here.
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I think it’s very important to have these conversations about the role EM is playing in what the federal government is doing.
Sadly someone has closed the petition