There’s a side of emergency management that we don’t talk about enough. It’s not in the training manuals or the planning meetings. It’s not listed in our certifications or spelled out in the after-action reports. But it’s always there quietly present in every decision we make. I’m talking about the emotional and mental weight we carry when our job is to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the unimaginable.
Before I stepped into emergency management, I spent most of my life as a critical care nurse. I cared for trauma patients, held hands in final moments, and led teams through the chaos of life-or-death situations. Death was never a stranger to me, but it was always personal. Always human. And it always reminded me that every second mattered.
That experience shaped me and it followed me into my work as an emergency management professional. But this role is different. Now I am not just caring for individuals in crisis. I am helping entire communities plan for the worst. I am trying to prevent loss. I am trying to build systems that protect people before tragedy strikes.
But even the best planning can’t stop every storm. And when disaster does come, whether it’s natural or manmade, we are the ones people look to for answers. For structure. For calm. That kind of responsibility requires more than knowledge and coordination. It requires presence. It requires mental preparedness.
And that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.
We spend our days preparing for events most people don’t want to think about mass casualties, widespread destruction, loss on a scale that feels unbearable. But we do it because we believe that preparation saves lives. We do it because we care deeply, even if we don’t always show it.
Being mentally prepared means understanding that witnessing destruction and loss can affect us, even when we think we’re used to it. It means checking in with ourselves and with our teams. It means knowing that stress and burnout are not signs of weakness, they are signs that we need support, too.
This job asks us to be calm in chaos. To hold it together when everything else is falling apart. But we’re human. And it’s okay to acknowledge that this work is hard. In fact, it’s necessary.
For me, mental preparedness is about more than being strong. It’s about being real. It’s about recognizing that while we may not be able to stop every disaster, we can prepare ourselves to lead through it with clarity, compassion, and resilience.
So to my fellow emergency management professionals: Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Be present. Be honest about the toll this work can take. And remember, your ability to stay grounded and human in the midst of crisis is what makes you good at what you do.
That quiet strength is what holds everything together when the world feels like it’s falling apart.
Mitch Lartigue – Building Safer Communities 
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