Lessons in Leadership Beyond Executive Ranks: Disaster Insights from Los Angeles and North Carolina
Rewritten Article:
Trevor Riggen is the bigwig of humanitarian services at the American Red Cross.
Once thought of as safe havens, communities across the globe are now finding themselves squarely in the crosshairs of catastrophic weather events. Over the past six months, the devastating impacts of the wildfires in Los Angeles and Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina served as a stark reminder: nowhere is Invincible.
Two vastly different settings, miles apart, were both ravaged by disasters that wiped out neighborhoods, displaced families, and left lasting emotional and financial scars. Yet the main takeaway is universal: every community needs to prepare.
A Dance of Opposites, A Lesson in Unity
It's tough to imagine two more contrasting landscapes than southern California's urban jungle and the rugged mountains of North Carolina. LA, the second-largest city in the US, boasts expansive emergency services, including state-of-the-art firefighting forces. On the other hand, the remote mountain communities of North Carolina rely on limited resources and neighborly support during crises.
Despite their differences, both regions suffered catastrophic losses at the hands of unprecedented natural disasters. In 2024, Hurricane Helene barrels through the Southeast, leaving devastation from Florida to Virginia, but focused its wrath on North Carolina. Homes were swept away, rivers overflowed, and entire communities were left in ruins.
In January 2025, the Palisades and Eaton fires scorched their way through Southern California, incinerating thousands of homes and turning neighborhoods and critical infrastructure to ashes. The ferocity of these fires, stoked by strong winds, soon ranked them among the most destructive in the state's history.
While hurricanes and wildfires are night and day, the climate crisis is causing a sharp increase in their frequency and intensity. These disasters also shared troubling similarities in their impact. In both regions, immediate needs included emergency shelter, food, healthcare, and mental health support, as well as financial assistance to help residents initiate the grueling recovery process. Rebuilding destroyed neighborhoods will take time, and the psychological toll may never fully heal.
Ready At Every Turn
The growing threat of extreme weather events makes preparedness a necessity for every household, community, and organization. Preparation at the household level starts with the basics: an emergency kit packed with essentials, an evacuation plan, and a reliable source of weather alerts and local emergency updates.
At the community level, readiness depends on coordination. All local organizations—not just emergency services—need to know their role in disaster preparedness and response. Often, organizations like food banks, healthcare clinics, and home care agencies offer vital services yet are frequently overlooked in disaster planning. These grassroots organizations can make a significant impact, thereby making proactive investment critical. When disaster strikes, they need to remain operational.
Preemptive collaboration is essential. A common mistake among communities is delaying response partnerships until disaster hits. Building relationships takes time, and when disaster strikes, time is a commodity we rarely have. Instead, communities should prioritize proactive planning that includes traditional responders like the American Red Cross and local emergency management, as well as unlikely responders like churches, local non-profits, and neighborhood groups. Each part of a community brings valuable resources to the table, which can save lives and expedite recovery.
The Future of Disaster Preparedness
Some people like to claim the term "new normal." But the reality is that the very concept of "normal" may no longer apply when it comes to disasters. Beyond Los Angeles and North Carolina, in the first 50 days of 2025, Red Cross volunteers responded to more significant disasters than the days so far this year—the majority of which didn't make headlines but were no less devastating for affected families.
The lesson is clear: disaster response is a constant for every community, and preparedness is an ongoing process that involves every segment of society. Every community needs to embrace a readiness framework that encompasses all stakeholders: residents, businesses, non-profits, and emergency responders alike. We all have a role to play, and the more we plan and build partnerships now, the better positioned we'll be when the next disaster strikes.
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- Trevor Riggen, the head of humanitarian services at the American Red Cross, witnessed the stark contrasts in disaster preparedness between urban Los Angeles and remote North Carolina mountain communities, both of which were hit hard by unprecedented natural disasters, even though they were exempt from such occurrences in the past.
- Despite the differences in resources and infrastructure, the likelihood of disasters such as Hurricane Helene and the wildfires in Los Angeles confirmed that every community, regardless of its location or appearances, is susceptible to catastrophic events and needs to prepare accordingly, relying on the cooperation of all organizations, including the Red Cross.
- In the future, Trevor Riggen and the American Red Cross envision a readiness framework where every community – be it urban or rural, rich or poor, exempt or vulnerable – embraces a proactive approach to disaster preparedness, with all stakeholders, including residents, businesses, non-profits, and emergency responders, working together, to minimize the impact of increasing disasters.
