Disaster Zone

Disaster Zone

Disaster Zone is hosted by Eric Holdeman, an emergency manager with over 30 years of experience at the federal, state and local levels of government. Disaster Zone is a podcast that focuses on all facets of disasters; the before, during and after of events that are increasingly impacting communities around the world. Podcasts run between 35-45 minutes with a mix of guests covering a range of disasters and issues that flow from them. Story topics and suggestions for people to interview are welcomed. You can contact the host via email.

Episodes

Legal Accountability Following Wildfires

January 7, 2026 • 49 mins
The 2025 Eaton Fire alone destroyed more than 9,000 structures and claimed 19 lives in Los Angeles County. Investigations by federal agencies and independent experts traced the fire's origin to Southern California Edison (SCE) equipment failures.  

Ari Friedman, a partner and trial attorney at Wisner Baum LLP is leading the charge to hold energy and insurance companies accountable and responsible for fire damages caused by their uti...
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Climate. Weather Extremes. Short Term Winter Forecast

December 23, 2025 • 46 mins
Renny Vandewege GM of climate and weather at DTN, has two decades of meteorological experience, educating business leaders on weather-induced disasters. DTN has an Operational Decisioning Platform that turns complex data into decision-grade insights—empowering customers to expand their margins, accelerate growth, and outpace risk. With more than 1,200 employees globally, DTN serves the companies that feed, fuel, and protect the wor...
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Disaster Costs Will Put State Budgets at Risk

December 9, 2025 • 47 mins
The Trump Administration has been making statements since January 2025 that they, meaning both the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security, want to shift disaster costs, beginning with disaster preparedness and then also disaster response and recovery more to states and local jurisdictions. PEW Charitable Trusts recently released a report, What Waning Federal Disaster Aid Would Mean for State Budgets This is the subject of...
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Seismic Retrofitting of Buildings

November 20, 2025 • 52 mins
It has been decades since the last significant earthquake in the United States. Yet, there are earthquake risks across the USA. In this podcast we learn about how homeowners and businesses can take proactive steps to improve the seismic survivability of their properties.  

The podcast guest is Kyle Tourjé, a second-generation contractor specializing in structural retrofitting, repair, and geohazard mitigation. As Executive Vice Pres...
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Better Coordination between Government and Nonprofits

November 14, 2025 • 39 mins
Nonprofits play a critical role in responding to and recovering from disasters. Today we will hear from one of those and then we will also have a discussion about how government and nonprofits can achieve better outcomes by what they do before and how they interact during disasters.  

Liz Baker, CEO of Greater Good Charities — a global organization that has spent the last twenty years providing disaster relief to communities in nee...
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Turmoil in the Media

November 6, 2025 • 48 mins
We are at a point in time where the media universe is in complete turmoil. Legacy media like radio and television is fading, while social media in all its forms is ascendant. News and commentary are being mixed together so people can’t discern which is which, while major media conglomerates are merging and reforming. The purpose of this podcast is to understand all the changes that are in process.  

Eric Yaverbaum, CEO of Ericho Com...
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An Innovative Risk Management and Insurance Strategy

October 22, 2025 • 45 mins
In recent years the U.S. has seen an increase in hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding –
causing record levels of destruction and damage. Despite these concerning trends,
traditional insurance can fall short, leaving Americans and our small businesses
vulnerable. But it doesn’t need to be this way – there is a tool out there to empower our
small businesses to self-insure, ensuring they are protected the next time a disaster
hits. The tool...
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Emergency Management's Role in Civil Defense with Michael Prasad

October 15, 2025 • 51 mins
The profession of emergency management has been in flux since its inception.
Currently the Trump Administration is looking how to organize the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) to fit with the President’s political and policy agendas.
Everything is perhaps up for grabs. In this podcast we look at one proposal to have the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) take over all aspects of what we might call
“civil defense” to have th...
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Using Aerial Tech for Estimating Damages

August 21, 2025 • 48 mins
The first challenge that faces emergency managers, all types of government jurisdictions and the private sector is figuring out where disasters have caused damages and what the extent of those damages are. This podcast investigates technologies that are in place today to provide precise information on damages. I also like that fact that this technology has many commercial applications that can be used before a disaster. You need th...
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Disaster Preparedness Beyond Food and Water

August 6, 2025 • 31 mins
While emergency managers do many a presentation on how individuals and families can become better prepared for a disaster—our message should go beyond “having all your important documents in one place. In this podcast we learn of a system that can help people do that in advance of a disaster.

The podcast guest is Maria Fraietta the founder and visionary behind The Nokbox, a pioneering estate planning tool and home organization syste...
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Destroying FEMA

July 16, 2025 • 56 mins
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been in the news for months. Both President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security have made remarks that FEMA should be abolished, perhaps moved out of DHS and physically out of Washington, D.C. A council has been established to examine how the federal response and recovery efforts to disasters should be accomplished moving forward. The current status and future of FEMA is t...
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Communicating About the Weather

June 17, 2025 • 58 mins
One of the few constants in our everyday life is the weather. It is likely something we check on frequently, even on sunny days. Today we will be talking with a veteran weather forecaster who has specific advice for those who deal with severe weather and its impacts on people and property. Communicating weather warnings will be a specific topic, along with the partnership between private forecast operations and the National Weather...
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What the LA Fires Taught Us About Disaster Recovery

June 10, 2025 • 47 mins
The Los Angeles fires will likely be the costliest natural disaster in our history. While they started as wildfire, they changed into an urban conflagration. Thousands of homes were destroyed along with other building structures, including businesses. In this podcast we’ll look at these impacts fires their destruction from the perspective of a private business that specializes in disaster recovery efforts.  

The podcast guest is Joe...
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An Overview of The Disaster Community in Europe

June 4, 2025 • 58 mins
In this podcast we will be learning about disaster community in Europe and more specifically in Switzerland. That will be in the first half of the podcast. In the second half, we will be talking about a more focused conversation about data and its role in integrated disaster risk management. During the podcast we review Emergency Meeting Points (EMP) in Switzerland. The link provided will give you more information.  

The podcast gue...
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Predicting Damages Before a Disaster

May 19, 2025 • 54 mins
In this podcast we look at a new technology being developed and fielded to help people and organizations, public and private better understand climate risks of all types. From wildfires to floods, climate fueled natural disasters are becoming more and more prevalent.  

The podcast guest is Sarah Russell, Managing Director of Bellwether who speaks to the ways that advanced machine learning can help improve disaster response as these ...
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When Projects Implode and Cause Financial Disasters

May 1, 2025 • 62 mins
There are all sorts of projects, large and small. I’ve advocated that all work is usually done in the form of a project. Really large projects require a huge investment in time and other resources to be successful. No one plans on failing, but there have been some very public failures in the past. In this podcast we’ll examine some general themes for those failures and also solutions you can put to use for your own projects to hope...
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Volunteers Assets or Liabilities

April 22, 2025 • 51 mins
Disaster volunteers come in many shapes and sizes. They can be individual citizens but typically are aligned with an organization that is offering aid to their fellow citizens. However, sometimes emergency managers have found that these well-intentioned volunteers seem to cause more headaches than they solve. Donated goods, for example can cause a mountain of work with many of the donations eventually going into a landfill.

In this ...
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Self-Imposed Barriers to Technology Adoption

April 15, 2025 • 59 mins
Technology is a driving force in public safety today. There are multiple challenges that come with considering which technologies should be adopted and fielded within an organization. Before that can happen, we need to collectively overcome self-imposed barriers to technology adoption, which is the subject of this Disaster Zone Podcast.  

The podcast guest is Garry Briese who has had a distinguished career in the fire service. Only ...
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Examining the Changes at FEMA with Craig Fugate

April 3, 2025 • 60 mins
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been predominantly in the news for many months. Most recently as both President Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security have made remarks that FEMA should be abolished. More recently a 20-person council has been established to examine how best the federal response and recovery efforts to disasters should be accomplished. This then is the topic for this podcast.

Craig Fugate the...
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Handling Layoffs with Empathy

March 27, 2025 • 45 mins
Personally, I have had to inform employees that their jobs were being eliminated. Sometimes because of a budget cut, sometimes due to their performance. How we handle these events is important to the people directly impacted and also to those who remain behind. This podcast will be addressing both topics and how to better structure a layoff scenario—and do it with empathy.  

Jim Cichanski, the founder, and Chief Human Resources Offi...
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