Evacuation lessons from the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires

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Plans are often theoretical and lack specific operational details. They include vague “planning to plan” terms such as “could,” “may,” “might,” “will consider,” or “under development,” which refer to unclear agreements or contracts with undefined accountability.

When asked about missing details during an emergency, some emergency managers and planners give these reasons:

• They experience political and public relations pressures. Some political leaders hesitate to state that emergency responses will be delayed, fearing it will be seen as government failure or incompetence.
• Political leaders often prioritize reassuring the public rather than sharing brutal realities, which leads to vague or overly optimistic messaging.
• Some are afraid of public panic or backlash. That is, some emergency managers worry that if they state, “You may not receive immediate help because there are response time gaps,” the public will panic or lose trust in the system and may be discouraged from calling for help when they need it.
• Traditional emergency management often focuses on command and control instead of providing the public with realistic information. Despite decades of evidence that large-scale disasters overwhelm response systems, some still operate under outdated assumptions that first responders will reach people quickly.
• A “911 culture” assumes calling emergency services guarantees immediate help, rather than reinforcing the need for community-based resilience.
• Some prioritize operational flexibility, meaning they have concerns and fears about perceived liability and lawsuits if plans are not implemented exactly as written.
• For the same reason, some do not write down their plans. (This author, however, found that many could not articulate plan details when nothing was in writing.)

These approaches and fears are misguided. The irony is that a lack of detail increases liability due to vagueness.

There is also an underinvestment in community education. Public education on emergency response is often underfunded and sporadic, focusing primarily on individual preparedness rather than the realities of systemic response. Messaging often defaults to generic disaster preparedness advice rather than directly addressing limitations, such as slow response time. Many emergency managers are not trained in risk communication and how to balance transparency with reassurance, and some lack the time or political know-how to influence elected decision-makers. Many do not have dedicated communications professionals to craft effective, accessible, and inclusive messages for people with disabilities.

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