Active Shooter. It’s a phrase that strikes an immediate sense of warning in all of us; a notion so terrible that many of us can only hope we’ll never be forced to face it in our own communities. But for some, tragedy may have already struck, and gaining a greater understanding of the problem may be one of the keys to developing a more empathetic, understanding community. That’s what Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt thinks anyway – she’s an emergency management professional who has extensive background and experience in active shooter responses of all different natures. That’s why she’s sitting down with Kelly Parbs to talk about facing the problem head on in Part One of this Two-Part series on Active Shooter Awareness – and how communities can start to lay the groundwork now for a stronger and healthier emergency infrastructure.
Listen to “Episode 18: Active Shooter Awareness with Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt, Part 1” on Spreaker.
Click here for the full episode transcription
OT Ep. 18 – Transcript.txt
00;00;09;02 – 00;01;34;06
Kelly Parbs
Welcome to OnTopic with Empathia – I’m your host, Kelly Parbs. Today on the show, we will be discussing active assailants. Who are they? What is their background? Can we use this information to keep ourselves safe? Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt is an emergency management professional who has extensive background and experience in active shooter responses. She has responded to incidents of all kinds- school shootings, airplane crashes, mudslides, hurricanes, earthquakes and more. She left her city emergency management position to take a job no one ever wants to have to fill – director of recovery following a mass murder suicide in a high school cafeteria. She was a member of a special team responding to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and stayed beyond the initial assignment to study what community violence does to the fabric of a community and to analyze the role of emergency management in that type of incident. Let’s meet Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt. Welcome, Mary, and thank you for being our guest today. I am overwhelmed when I look at the long list of experiences you have had in the field of crisis management, and I can’t wait to hear your stories.
00;01;34;09 – 00;02;01;24
Mary Schoenfeldt
Well, thank you, Kelly. It’s delightful to be here. And when you look at that long list, I’ve been around a long time and I’ve just had some incredible opportunities, humbling opportunities, but incredible opportunities and to learn and then be able to share whatever kind of lessons or wisdom I might have gotten from someone else that I can share now with with your audience and with others.
00;02;02;01 – 00;02;05;28
Kelly Parbs
Excellent. I kind of feel like I’m talking to a rock star in our industry!
00;02;05;29 – 00;02;26;23
Mary Schoenfeldt
Well, when you when you say talking to a rock star, I have to tell you, I am a rock hunter. It’s one of the things that I do for self-care is that I go out and I and I look for agates and fossils and so when anyone calls me a rock hunter, I typically say, Yep, You’re right! I am. And I’ve got a trip planned coming up here in a couple of weeks.
00;02;26;26 – 00;02;44;28
Kelly Parbs
Oh, excellent. Who knew? I might be asking you a little bit more about your self care later, so thank you for sharing that with me! You and I have both been working in- in this industry for a long time, and I just can’t wait to hear more about your experiences.
00;02;45;04 – 00;02;53;15
Mary Schoenfeldt
Well, thank you. And you- you say industry. It’s interesting to even think of this work as being an industry. And yet- and yet it is indeed.
00;02;53;17 – 00;03;14;06
Kelly Parbs
You know, I think we both could agree we really both wish that these active shooter or active assailant situations would never happen. But since they do it, it really is an honor and a privilege to walk alongside people in helping with the healing process when they are going through this.
00;03;14;13 – 00;03;16;28
Mary Schoenfeldt
Yes, I certainly agree with that.
00;03;17;01 – 00;04;00;08
Kelly Parbs
I’m interested in learning about how individuals, organizations and communities are impacted by active assailant events. And my purpose here is in exploring this so that people can feel more prepared. Information is power, right? I’m hoping that by having some mental and physical preparedness that we can help ease some of the anxieties that come from feeling powerless. So first, let’s lay a little bit of groundwork. Tell us about how you became involved in this line of work and tell us some of your experiences.
00;04;00;10 – 00;10;27;29
Mary Schoenfeldt
Well, it’s interesting. I was thinking about that today as I was getting ready to have some conversation with you. And- and I started out to be a kindergarten teacher. And that was the goal from the time I was very, very small, is that I was going to become a kindergarten teacher and surround myself with interesting questioning and creative little beings. And life kind of derailed that a little bit for me. And what I found was that I truly, truly have a heart that says people are hurting somehow and that maybe there’s some small thing that I might be able to do or be a part of. Not that it’s just me, but be a part of that will help to lessen that anguish a little bit. So my career path found me working in juvenile court with young people who had broken a law, sometimes very minor laws, and yet that’s where they were. And we did diversion programs and did some other things. But I went to work for a local police department that I was hired as a community service officer. So basically a social worker in a town of little less than 100,000 people. And we had a really what was then a very, very unusual event in that we had a group of middle school kids that were in somebody’s living room, absolutely appropriate after school for that couple, 3 hours. While, you know, parents weren’t back from work yet. And as these kids are sitting and just kind of doing what you know, 12, 13, 14 year old kids will do, somebody said, hey, my dad’s got a gun and let me show it to you. So this gun then appeared and started being passed around this room. And as these these young men were looking at that and going in on the bed and horsing around as again as kids will do, and then the gun went off. One of the young people that was sitting there was was injured. Police got called, shooting! Oh, my gosh! I mean, everybody in town was anxious and aware from a response because we didn’t get those calls very often. So that’s kind of the background. And then I, as a social worker, was called to come in and help support at that scene and whatever way that I could, my myself and my colleague. So we supported those kids a little bit that were there, that had witnessed, although in that particular incidents and any kind of a law enforcement issue, you have to be very, very careful about talking to those that law enforcement now are going to need to be gathering investigative information from. We worked with parents, we worked with neighbors. We scooted the media away as best we could. And there were no charges. It was an accidental shooting. The young man that was injured survived, certainly with some injuries, but not anything that was life threatening. So in some ways that call was over for us. And yet being in the position that I was in and my local police agency, we also did any kind of of social service and community service kinds of calls. And Kelly, over the next 18 months, we saw coming back into our police agency, every single one of those young people that had witnessed or been involved in that incident in some way. And they came back “unrelated”. And I put that in quotes. They came back and into the our agency unrelated to the incident in that living room that day. And I got very, very curious about that because these kids, you take a group of and I think there were seven. You take a group of seven young- again, these all happened to be men, but it could be the same thing if there had been some females in the in the room. You take- you take a group of seven, 13 year old boys. And just because of developmental issues, one or two of those are probably going to bump into your police department as they’re just kind of, you know, figuring out who they are, but not every single one of them. But we saw them. We saw them as a result of some truancy issues where they’d not had school issues in the past. We saw them and they came in as reported runaways. We had one that just continually now was going to the other side of the state to connect with a cousin that was there. We saw some minor misdemeanors- shoplift, again, kind of simple things, and I was absolutely intrigued by that. That we didn’t, as a community, have a way of supporting that, or maybe there was support that was available. So that led me to a place of doing some training, writing some training material and in a book actually on school crisis response and then has led me into this area of not only wanting to be a part of a solution in whatever way that might be, but also directing my my professional path. I am an emergency management professional as what my my card and my titles says. So that gives me the opportunity to be in a lot of different places. And I have a specialty in school and community crisis. So and- not just the hurricanes and the wildfires, but certainly the targeted violence that we’re seeing with incredible increase these days.
00;10;28;01 – 00;11;27;19
Kelly Parbs
It’s so interesting to me that that one event, that one very unfortunate event really motivated you down this whole path of of crisis management. And I can hear in your voice, your heart for it that you’re so motivated to be part of the solution and be part of the the healing. And I so can relate to that and appreciate it. I want to jump in and explore, how can we- and by we I mean everyday people- be better informed and prepared before an incident occurs? So one of the biggest questions is who? Who are these assailants? What are their stories and what motivates them? How can we identify them or predict what they might do? And I know that was a lot of questions. But let’s start with the who. Who are these assailants?
00;11;27;21 – 00;17;41;02
Mary Schoenfeldt
That’s a very interesting question and one that we have much more information about than we did even five years ago, ten years ago, certainly 20 years ago, we didn’t know very much and we were doing a lot of guessing. But several years ago there were a group of of some of those experts, and I don’t claim to be an expert in any way, but there was a group of the experts from the FBI and the Secret Service, Department of Justice, US U.S. Department of Education, because we were looking at targeted violence coming into our schools and- and getting absolutely heartbroken about that and wondering how we can, you know, how can we step in the way of that and- and so what came out of that collaboration, if you will, of those agencies is something that’s called the National Threat Assessment Center. And there also was a Secret Service initiative, School safety initiative study that was done in 2004 and then was updated to 2019. And I’m- I’m sharing that so that if any of your listeners want to know more, those are some of the resources that they can and they can take a look at and- and get some information. So, you know, some of the key findings is that they found is that most of our perpetrators assailants are- I don’t even know what the right term is to use for those that perpetrate this kind of of an act on others. It wasn’t sudden, it wasn’t impulsive. If there may have been a drip in that lab, that very, very full bucket that caused today to be the day that it overflowed, but that most people had planned and that other people had known in some form or another. But oftentimes dismissed what they knew because, gee, so and so says this all the time. Oh, you know, there’s so much about that on the media. There was a movie like that and they’re just they’re just talking and want some attention. So we do know that- that they were planned and not impulsive and that other people knew. The other piece and one that I have been sharing the word in all of the trainings and teaching and consulting that I’ve done over the years is that we really need to look at suicide prevention when we are talking about violence prevention. If you pay attention to the incidents that we all see all too frequently, in my opinion these days, and when you when you look deeply, the majority of are assailants and they’re both men, male and female, the majority of them don’t expect to survive the incident. So they were they were suicidal oftentimes to begin with and then made the decision that that would be a public act. And I’ve done a lot of training and a lot of work and a lot of writing and a lot of of just, you know, research and listening and and learning about suicide prevention and suicide intervention and then the recovery or the aftermath piece for families or people who were connected with that person who opted for suicide. And it used to be that suicide was a private event. And it’s not it’s not a new phenomenon. Neither of these, whether we’re talking suicide or we’re talking acts of violence, and neither of those are new phenomena. But it used to be that suicide was a private act. So in other words, Kelly, if I decided that for whatever my reasons are, my life needed to end, that was the right choice for me at that particular moment. It used to be that that would have been private. So I would have gone down in the basement or I would have gone out in the back 40 and it would have greatly impacted my family. But it was private that has turned and it has turned to become a public event. So now if we add the planning, somebody knows, somebody is thinking, I’m not going to survive this and I’m going to take other people with me, then that adds very much into that recipe or that mix some of the other things that that in just looking at that study and again, I can I can provide those resources to you. Kelly And you can provide them to your listeners in whatever way. You know, there’s really not a profile other than we know that oftentimes folks are isolated, lonely. They have trouble with relationships. They have a fascination with past history of events like this almost every year to talk specifically about school targeted violence. But it also translates to adults as well. I think it’s- it’s- and I won’t use the word 100%, but it’s very, very consistent that those perpetrators have they have researched the Columbine High School shootings. They have researched some of the violence in, you know, Nazi Germany and they have researched other incidences to learn from them, not just to replicate, but to learn what worked and what failed.
00;17;41;04 – 00;18;45;12
Kelly Parbs
That is something I didn’t know is that oftentimes these perpetrators have a long history of- of really being fascinated with- with events from the past. And so, you know, back to this idea of what can we everyday people kind of be more informed about and more prepared about and I want to highlight just a couple of these things that you said. One of them that struck me is that someone knew. Someone had some hints, but maybe they didn’t come forward. And I think for our listeners, that’s something that we can pay attention to, is if you feel like something is a little bit of say something, seek intervention, as hard as that might be. But then also you said these perpetrators, oftentimes, although there’s not a specific profile, oftentimes they’re isolated, they’re lonely, they might have poor social skills and that they’re fascinated in these past events that may have that have occurred.
00;18;45;14 – 00;20;49;00
Mary Schoenfeldt
Yes. And again, all of those things are the things that when those social scientists who really can look at this said with, I think, a real objective lens, they- that those are many of the things and that we see. So some of the things that we can do is absolutely notice and that’s difficult. And in you know I don’t claim that that’s an easy thing for any of us to do. We look at those people closest to us, our family members, our neighbors, our friends. You know, I’ve had friends in my life that maybe didn’t fit a mold of, you know, socially acceptable in some ways or another. And I you know, and- but what I have taken what I have taken that step to say, hmm, I’m concerned about this thing. It’s- it’s not an easy thing to do. I personally, I have taken that step, but it’s certainly not an easy thing to do. But that’s one of the things that we can do, is we can we can notice and we can we can notice early again, Remember, this is not- it’s not impulsive. It’s not, gee I’m 23 years old or I’m 13 years old or I’m 63 years old and today I’m going to get up and this is what I’m going to do. We can notice people early, those people that we interact with, and maybe that’s ourselves and we can- we can increase connection, increasing connection. If we look again at what we know is people are isolated and alone and the pandemic certainly has added into that, as well as our political polarization that we’ve got going on in our country. But if we can make a connection, maybe it’s an actual sentence that says, I notice you, or maybe it’s just an act, sometimes that smiling somebody in the grocery store, just make eye contact.
00;20;49;00 – 00;20;54;27
Kelly Parbs
Right. I was just going to say that eye contact, notice people, kindness really does matter.
00;20;55;02 – 00;21;20;02
Mary Schoenfeldt
It very much does. So those are some of the things. I mean, in that early piece, a couple of other things that that I like to share with people that is if- if you want to make a difference in your community and if you want to stop the next shooting of some sort or act of targeted violence, get your car washed. Now, that’s an interesting statement. I know.
00;21;20;05 – 00;21;24;23
Kelly Parbs
I don’t think I’ve ever heard that tip! Get your car washed? Tell us!
00;21;24;25 – 00;22;44;23
Mary Schoenfeldt
Yes. And it there’s no doubt that is an interesting statement for sure. But if you if you want to make a difference in your community with targeted violence, get your car washed! And when I say that, what I mean is the next time you drive down the street and at the local parking lot or the the grocery store for the gas station, for the tire shop, whatever, if the local drama club or the local chess club or the- the you know, the high school football team is doing a car wash, stop and pay your $10 and get your car washed. Because when you do that, what you’re doing is you’re supporting programs and a system like a school system that will support and break down isolation of those members of that youth group. And it doesn’t just have to be school, could be YMCA, it could be a bowling league, whatever it is, break down the isolation and support those programs. And you do that with your $10 for a car wash.
00;22;44;28 – 00;22;55;26
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And give those kids something to do. Let them know you noticed them and that they’re important to make those connections, both individually and with your community.
00;22;55;29 – 00;25;02;10
Mary Schoenfeldt
And you are funding your your $10 not going directly to those students, but you’re funding that program that helps to connect with young people. So, you know, those are- those- I know that’s an unusual answer. Get your car washed. And one of the other ones is, know who you know who you’re voting for. There just was an incident, and I don’t remember what state it was- in where there was a young person who had decided that he was suicidal and went and climbed up to the top of the water tower. And as he was climbing, somebody called, police went. And this young man said, I want to talk to my school resource officer who is the law enforcement professional that had been assigned to his middle school. The school resource officer was off shift. So they called him. He came in, you know, certainly on his own time and- and came in and then had this conversation with this young man for up to an hour. And the young man came down from the water tower. Wonderful, wonderful story. Back up a little bit. And how did that happen? That didn’t happen in this case, this young man decided suicide would be a private act. He could have come in- that could have gone a different direction into that targeted violence piece. That didn’t happen just on that evening, it happened because there were school board members that had been elected and city government officials that had been some elected and some department heads that that had made the made the commitment to fund programs like the school resource officer program, and that was relationship building. So it broke down that isolation. So again, kind of an unusual example, I think, of what we can do.
00;25;02;12 – 00;25;26;24
Kelly Parbs
Sure, but it’s something that we can do, Mary, and that’s what I’m looking for! What can we, everyday people, do to prevent these kinds of acts or be prepared for these kinds of acts? And- and these are excellent examples. Know who your community leaders are and and what they believe and what they will support. That’s something that we do have power over!
00;25;26;26 – 00;26;45;12
Mary Schoenfeldt
Very much so. Very much so. And and with our instant media and social media and the 24 hour media cycle and we really do have the opportunity to know more and to do more. And yet we are so overloaded and so overwhelmed and sometimes sometimes we don’t. And- and if we’re looking again, to stick with that same question about something we can do to be prepared and be informed. One of the things you can do is you can turn off the media. Turn that TV set off and not watch the same, and put our phones down much more frequently than many of us do, because that just blurs our thinking and gives us the message that the world is an ugly, violent place. Because that’s what we’re seeing over and over and over and over and over and over again. And we lose- we lose touch with the people that we do connect with and the things that are important to us and the things that we can do to make a difference to our neighbors or to somebody in the grocery store that we’ve never met and will never know. But we just smile and acknowledge them as we walk by.
00;26;45;15 – 00;27;59;12
Kelly Parbs
Absolutely. And that’s something that I work with my clients on all the time is limiting exposure to the media and social media. It’s an important part of our lives, but we can really overdo it, and especially if a traumatic or tragic incident has occurred. We don’t need to read that news story over and over and over and have that so ingrained in our brain. We can really get secondary trauma from that. And we will talk a little bit more about kind of the after effects of a- a tragic event. But just to stay on this idea of what can we do to prepare and be informed, I was talking to a girlfriend of mine about, you know, doing this podcast and asking her, you know, her thoughts on it. And she said something interesting to me. She said that she attended a training where she learned how to identify what gunshots actually sound like. And I thought that was interesting because for those of us who are not accustomed to hearing gunfire, I suppose it would be a good idea to be able to recognize and identify the- the sound of gunshots.
00;27;59;15 – 00;29;13;20
Mary Schoenfeldt
But gunshots sound very much like fireworks. And I know where I live. You know, I live in the Seattle area and everybody- millions of people are Seattle Seahawks football fans. So every time there’s a touchdown, every time certainly that the Seahawks went and there are fireworks that are going off and we tend to become desensitized to that sound. So paying attention in whatever way. But certainly to know what the sound of of gunshots are and- and our brain does an interesting thing when there’s that kind of stimulus that comes in, our brain actually goes into survival mode. And what our survival mode brain says is, wait a minute, I need to slow down. I need to think about this. I need to process what this is so we really don’t react as quickly as in some- in some instances that maybe we we should be doing.
00;29;13;22 – 00;30;02;19
Kelly Parbs
Sure. And I think it’s hard to find that balance, too. I’m part of your reminding me. I’m part of this neighborhood app on my phone. And just the other day, someone on that app said that they had heard two pops and they sounded in a very concerned kind of hyper vigilant, right? That we’re afraid of what’s going on around us. And we don’t want to always be afraid either. And you reminded me of this because it ended up being fireworks. But she was being aware and alert and put it out on the neighborhood app that she was hearing these sounds. And although, you know, I think that’s a good idea, I also think it I don’t want to live in fear either of every sound that I hear.
00;30;02;21 – 00;32;07;02
Mary Schoenfeldt
Well and there’s a couple of interesting thoughts about that is just we can’t live in that- we can’t live in that constant anxiety place. So we need to be able to filter out. And we do that with some knowledge. We do that and with credible sources. Now, you know, I’ve gone either, you know, I believe her. I heard what you said about your neighbor and putting it out and good idea. But then for anyone who’s reading that, they needed to check that out. Or they reacted in some way because that was something that was happening that wasn’t in their initial environment. But if we are looking if we are in a public place, if we are in a business somewhere, or if we’re in a training, if we’re in a meeting, if we’re in the local movie theater, it’s always a good idea to know what your environment is. And not only when we’re talking about targeted violence here, but not only for targeted violence, but also for natural disasters of some sort, because what could be happening could be in, you know, hazardous materials explosion in a building next door to that theater. It’s not just a targeted violence, but know where your exits are. And always when you walk in somewhere, just kind of, you know, glance around and say, oh, there’s a door here and there’s there’s another door there. Don’t have to do anything other than pay attention to what’s around you. And then if there is that sound and we keep talking, Kelly, about gunshots? And targeted violence is not just about guns. It’s not just about weapons. Yes, some of the targeted violence that we have seen and the automobile has been the weapon. So, you know, there are there are certainly other things other than- so I don’t want to- I don’t want this only to be a conversation about guns.
00;32;07;02 – 00;33;42;07
Kelly Parbs
I appreciate that. And, Mary, you know that as a critical incident responder, I’ve been to so many tragic events and sadly recently one of those was in our own backyard. I was very involved in responding to the Waukesha, Wisconsin parade tragedy. It happened 12 minutes from my house. And for those of you who may not be aware of what happened, an enraged man who drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in our community, killing and injuring many people, including children and elderly adults. And not only was I involved immediately, but also at the six month anniversary and the one year anniversary. And I’ll tell you to say that people are still impacted one year later can it- is an understatement. And as tragic as that was, it really did open my eyes to the healing that can occur in a strong community. One of the points that you’re making here is one of the things that we can do individually and as communities is to build strength and and resilience, because even when individuals are not feeling strong, there is such power in having a community committed to getting through this together. So that that was a lot of words to say, yes, an active assailant can use his car as a weapon, to your point.
00;33;42;10 – 00;34;14;05
Mary Schoenfeldt
Yes. Yes, yes. And before we leave, kind of this part of the conversation about what can we do, tip lines! There are- many communities have actual programs that are called tip lines, anonymous tip lines and use those! And don’t be shy about making that phone phone call. It says I’m- I might be feeling a little silly about this however and this was this is concerning to make.
00;34;14;07 – 00;34;24;18
Kelly Parbs
Sure! It feels kind of like a little more of a safe way to do that by saying maybe anonymously on a tip line. So to have that set up in your community.
00;34;24;20 – 00;35;41;00
Mary Schoenfeldt
So that, you know, if there’s not a formalized tip line and police agencies have certainly have the 911 system, but they also have a non-emergency line. So you share the information that you have. My background in law enforcement tells me that even when you report something, that data is captured in some form or another and it might be six months or a year or five years later that something pops up and the the the connections may get made. We know they will not get made If you did not make that call. So that’s the only thing we know for sure. If you do not make that call and you don’t say I’m concerned or this feels a little odd and I want you to know about it. We know that information will never, ever go anywhere. If you make that call, there’s a chance that that information could make a difference. And you may never know whether it made any difference or not.
00;35;41;02 – 00;36;12;15
Kelly Parbs
Right, great tip. Mary, I’m thinking about, you know, this idea of building a relationship with local emergency teams. And as an individual and in your community, I’m trying to wrap my mind around, you know, what what would that look like if a local business or a local church, they wanted to build a relationship with emergency community teams. Where would they start? Who would they call? What- what would that look like?
00;36;12;17 – 00;38;30;11
Mary Schoenfeldt
In each community? That may be slightly different, Kelli, but and letting letting you know, we’re talking about targeted violence. So letting law enforcement know. But in in communities, there’s first responders, those traditional first responders which are law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services, and then, you know, kind of those ancillary or hospitals, etc., etc.. But in addition to those systems, there’s also a system that’s called emergency management. And emergency management’s role is to coordinate and to get resources. So those first responders, if they don’t have what they need, then emergency management can help them get that. Emergency management usually as- is we look at emergency management, we hear about them on the news when there’s a hurricane or there’s a tornado or there’s a flood or there was some sort of a a natural disaster. But emergency management is also there in other kinds of events and doing a lot of training and a lot of talk right now about what emergency management’s role is in targeted violence or other significant community disrupting events. So that system is there. And- and so one of the ways, if you are a local business or you are are, you know, the pastor of your local church or and- you’re the president of your homeowner’s association, reach out to that emergency management and just say, we’re here. Is- we would like to connect. We would like to know more about disaster preparedness, which is what emergency management does a great deal of, is talk about making sure you’ve got bottles of water and, you know, some granola bars so you can get by and- but build that relationship in that way by reaching out and saying, we’re here, we want your information, but we want you to know that we exist.
00;38;30;14 – 00;38;31;21
Kelly Parbs
Sure.
00;38;31;23 – 00;39;27;25
Mary Schoenfeldt
One of the things that emergency management most emergency management or fire district fire department, fire district and communities have what’s called a CERT program, CERT, Community Emergency Response Team. They’re looking for volunteers. And they’re looking for volunteers that will help in lots and lots and lots and lots of different ways. So there are some very, very, very excellent training about how to use a fire extinguisher and how to do first aid. But that’s a connection that you can make from your business, from your from your soccer league, from your church. And it gets you some training, but it also helps to build to build that relationship with them.
00;39;27;25 – 00;39;39;17
Kelly Parbs
And to do that before an event happens, I think is key to build those relationships and have that strength built before an event happens. So systems can be in place.
00;39;39;17 – 00;40;01;16
Mary Schoenfeldt
And Kelly, let me underscore that one, as an emergency manager? I- and I have been in the center of some pretty significant and events, both natural and targeted violence events. And I’ll tell you that if I don’t didn’t know you before, that, hances are I was not going to have time to meet and greet you.
00;40;01;21 – 00;40;04;23
Kelly Parbs
Sure. Because you’re involved in the chaos at this point.
00;40;04;23 – 00;41;46;21
Mary Schoenfeldt
Absolutely! You could come with the best magic wand in the world that would turn time back so that whatever it was happened didn’t happen. Yeah. If I didn’t know you ahead of time? I probably was not going to be able to use the resources that you bring. The other thing that happens in natural disasters, but also certainly in this targeted violence kind of incident called unaffiliated volunteers, those of us who want to help, but we’re not connected? Chances are we are going to create more chaos than we’re going to solve. And there is a phenomena that’s called a trauma tourist and emergency management and law enforcement folks are aware they may have different names for it, but they are aware that there are those folks that want to come and help, most of them with good intentions, but not all. So build those relationships ahead of time. The stronger a community is ahead of time with good social connection programs and, you know, service clubs that are strong and do good humanitarian work within your community and good stakeholder groups, the stronger you are ahead of time that it’s never going to be easy. But the more solid your recovery will be. And because you’ll draw on what you have previously and you’re not introducing yourselves to each other in the midst of that, in that chaos and in that brain fog that happens.
00;41;46;23 – 00;42;00;22
Kelly Parbs
Can you give us an example of a business or a church who did have a relationship with emergency management and then were able to step up and do something truly helpful?
00;42;00;24 – 00;43;18;11
Mary Schoenfeldt
In the city that I was with with emergency management, we had somebody who was interested in being just trained as a volunteer. Man’s name was Ian, and Ian was interested just in learning more about how to use a fire extinguisher and how to do a little bit of first aid. He came into into our CERT program just to learn that one just came to class. And in the conversation it turns out that Ian was part of a church and that they had a portable feeding trailer similar to a barbecue trailer that they would move that around on Saturdays to different parking lots that and then they would, you know, feed the homeless. Well that like our eyes and emergency management absolutely lit up! Like Ian, is there a way we can make a connection with your church? Because the church had folks that number one they had the truck that would hold the trailer. And number two, they had people who could drive that truck and they had volunteers, you know, parishioners that wanted to help. So they had all of that. All we needed was Ian’s phone number.
00;43;18;13 – 00;43;19;14
Kelly Parbs
Wow!
00;43;19;16 – 00;44;53;20
Mary Schoenfeldt
And as an emergency manager, that’s what I wanted. I always called it my network of networks. I wanted 100 phone numbers – not phone numbers – emails! That I could put out on a mass email saying, this is what’s happening and this is what we need to 100 people. But I knew and I was able to track it, which was always pretty fascinating. I knew that that I sent it to 100, but each one of those represented another hundred or another, thousands of people. And so that network of networks would then go out and, you know, there would be 20,000 people that within an hour got what I sent out to those hundred people. So all I needed as an emergency manager was I just needed to be able to contact Ian and he would do it. Service clubs is another on tap incredible resource, not only for emergency managers, but for that for us as community members. So when I say service clubs, I mean the local Rotary Club, the local Lions, the local Kiwanis, Soroptimist, the optimist, there’s any number of them. And they are a place that individuals can become members of. And then that connection then can be utilized in some kind of a- of a- of a crisis or a catastrophic event.
00;44;53;22 – 00;46;02;23
Kelly Parbs
That’s- that’s such great information. And I hope some of our listeners are saying, you know, hey, I own a food truck or- or maybe my church would like to be involved in- in passing out water or whatever it might be. The key here is contact your local emergency teams ahead of time and have a plan because that’s going to be far more effective than calling in the aftermath of of a disaster. Mary, thank you so much for joining us today to talk about this with our listeners. We really appreciate it. This episode is part one of my conversation with Mary. Come back next time for part two when Mary and I discuss how you and your community can respond if there is a targeted act of violence To hear that episode and other episodes of OnTopic with Empathia, visit our website, www.Empathia.com. Follow us on social media @Empathia, and subscribe to OnTopic with Empathia to hear new episodes as soon as they go live. I’m Kelly Parbs – thanks for listening to OnTopic with Empathia!
