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The Destruction of Trust in Institutions

Emergency managers are victims along with many others.

Why don't all parents get their children immunized in order to protect them from diseases? We can blame the immunization deficit on fake news and the Internet, but in reality--it is a lack of trust in the broader medical community. Way back when I was a kid, you did whatever the doctor told you to do. They were "medical gods." Now there are other voices undermining trust.

When you hear politicians calling out law enforcement, the national security apparatus, etc. as being untrustworthy, that is not just impacting those organizations--it impacts all of government. 

When an emergency management agency fails in issuing a warning on the East Coast, those of us on the West Coast get caught in the back-blast. 

We are reputationally interconnected, whether we like it or not. We need to root for governments everywhere to be successful in all their endeavors. Their success is our success. 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.