Storm Helene Causes Massive Flooding Across Swath Of Western North Carolina (Photo by Mario ... More
When rumors about Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) withholding aid spread through storm-ravaged communities after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, emergency workers found themselves facing not just disaster recovery but actual threats of violence. Some responders retreated from the hardest-hit areas, delaying critical relief efforts. One FEMA worker even directed workers helping hurricane survivors not to go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Donald Trump, a real world impact that negatively impacted these survivors and the employee was later fired for this clear violation of FEMA’s values.
This wasn't a failure of disaster logistics, but something more insidious: targeted misinformation campaigns that exploited existing distrust and social media algorithms to turn victims against the very people attempting to help them and leading to behavior that was detrimental to FEMA’s mission and reputation as well.
Physical and virtual spaces intersect
Welcome to crisis management in 2025, where disasters unfold in both physical and virtual spaces simultaneously.
The Maui wildfires of 2023 offered an early warning of this troubling convergence. While firefighters battled actual flames, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the government seizing land circulated widely, credited partly to coordinated Russian and Chinese destabilization campaigns. Concurrent with this digital assault, fraudsters posed as real estate agents or contractors to steal deposits from already-devastated wildfire survivors.
Such incidents reveal something fundamental about our current moment: technology has become both salvation and vulnerability in crisis management. The platforms that enable rapid coordination also accelerate disinformation. The data systems holding crucial survivor information tempt cybercriminals. The AI tools that forecast storm paths can also amplify bias in relief distribution.
FEMA recognizes this reality. The 2024 FEMA National Advisory Council (NAC) Recommendation 2024-13 explicitly called for evaluating and leveraging advanced technology, acknowledging both opportunities and threats. Business leaders would be wise to adopt a similar framework. Every organization with disaster exposure must reassess continuity planning through this bifocal lens.
The threat and promise of emerging technology
Consider artificial intelligence. In emergency contexts, AI excels at processing vast datasets quickly, offering improved early warning systems and resource allocation. But these systems depend entirely on their inputs. Poor data creates flawed predictions. Biased training sets can disadvantage certain communities in relief prioritization. Over-reliance can atrophy human judgment, particularly dangerous when unpredictable variables demand intuitive calls.
Blockchain offers similar contrasts. Its potential for transparent tracking of donations and immutable supply chains suits disaster response perfectly. Smart contracts could accelerate disbursement of emergency funds, addressing the notorious delays that plague recovery efforts. Yet blockchain implementation requires technical sophistication, stable infrastructure, and regulatory clarity—three things often compromised during active incidents.
Cybersecurity vulnerabilities compound these challenges. The Office of the National Cyber Director documented an alarming increase in cyberattacks against critical infrastructure in their May 2024 report on U.S. cybersecurity posture. FEMA responded by partnering with CISA to launch the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program (SLCGP), allocating nearly $280 million this fiscal year to help local governments mitigate cyber risk. Their joint "Planning Considerations for Cyber Incidents" guidance signals another shift: cyber incidents themselves now qualify as potential disasters requiring specialized response protocols.
Principles for organizations
For organizations operating in hazard-vulnerable regions or critical sectors, these developments demand strategic recalibration. Three principles stand out:
First, technology adoption should align with specific organizational vulnerabilities and capabilities. AI deployment works differently for a hospital system than for a regional utility. Blockchain might revolutionize insurance claim processing while proving impractical for emergency communications. Context matters.
Second, data governance becomes non-negotiable. The same information that enables efficient disaster response creates privacy and security risks. Organizations must integrate ethical frameworks for data collection, usage, and protection, particularly regarding vulnerable populations.
Third, anti-misinformation resilience requires advance preparation. Establishing trusted information channels before crises strike, training communicators to respond to false narratives, and building relationships with community leaders who can validate accurate information when needed - these capabilities can't be improvised mid-disaster.
Public-private partnerships facilitate solutions
The private sector holds advantages in addressing these challenges. Companies can iterate technology solutions more nimbly than government agencies. They can create cross-functional teams without bureaucratic constraints. They can experiment with innovative approaches to trust-building and information verification.
This isn’t just an IT or operations problem. It’s a C-suite and board-level mandate. Business leaders must close the knowledge gap around emerging tech risk to protect reputations, preserve stakeholder trust, and build operational resilience in the next era of crisis response. This knowledge gap represents the next frontier in organizational resilience. Leaders who grasp how technological vulnerabilities and capabilities interact with traditional hazards will outperform those still operating from outdated continuity playbooks.
The future demands this integrated approach. Like FEMA’s Office of Emerging Threats which continuously monitors the evolving threat landscape, leaders from the public and private sector alike should expand their risk aperture and learn to think more like futurists. Futurist thinking in crisis response involves looking beyond the immediate challenges of today to anticipate and prepare for future uncertainties. A proactive approach to resilience planning helps organizations be more prepared, adapt to changing circumstances, and thrive even in the face of unexpected challenges. It can help organizations better cope with a rapidly evolving threat landscape and begin to unpack the way in which physical and virtual threats intersect.
As the Trump Administration considers how to reimagine our national resilience strategy to reduce reliance on federal resources, it is worth considering whether state and local actors have the capacity to be future ready. In order to be properly risk-informed, any new strategy must incorporate rapidly evolving advanced technology concepts including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, mis/disinformation campaigns, privacy and data integrity, among others. Meeting this daunting national security challenge will require significant capacity building and resources.
What remains clear is that all leaders will need to address the threats posed by emerging advanced technology and harness their opportunities. The most damaging disasters may arrive not as visible storms but as invisible vulnerabilities in the systems we’ve built to withstand them. Leaders who recognize this shift—and who build cross-functional strategies that blend cyber, communications, and business continuity planning—will define the next generation of resilient enterprises.
Thank you to Smita Samanta for research support on this article.