During our early response, I realized that our ability to generate new innovative ideas to counter the lack of critical resources was fading. In some cases, it seemed like the harder we squeezed, the less and less “juice” we were able to produce. The struggle to generate novel ideas to overcome shortages ran parallel with our dwindling and hard-to-regenerate human resources.

FEMA’s role dramatically changed after the COVID-19 pandemic. Congress had realized that the Nation had multiple and disjointed ways it responded to a variety of major crises. FEMA traditionally managed natural disasters, the Department of Health and Human Services managed public health emergencies, the Department of Agriculture managed food emergencies and the Department of Energy managed energy emergencies. The list kept going; there were as many different disaster response plans as there were governmental agencies.