Review of the New York City Emergency Management Podcast​​

 

New York City Emergency Management (NYCEM - formerly known as 'OEM') has a monthly podcast which focuses on topics related to emergency management. The production is officially entitled as ‘Prep Talk,’ and was launched in November of 2017. The content seemingly is geared for the citizen who may desire to learn more about how the city prepares and responds to hazards and emergencies. Most episodes run about 15-30 minutes long, sometimes shorter, sometimes a bit longer. At the time of this writing there are currently 9 episodes, with the latest on covering the topic of Volunteers. Previous themes have included: Women in Emergency Management, Wireless Emergency Alerts, Snow Operations in NYC, Flu Prevention, etc.

​

The team of hosts have pleasant voices and the associated light & professional bumper music ads to the structure of the overall production. The topics so far have been straightforward and basic—as this is a program designed for civilians to partake in, not necessarily the specialized emergency preparedness professional. The podcast is certainly professional, and the subjects are presented well. Overall, it seems to be a handy tool which can be used to help educate the millions of citizens and commuters who live and work in the city. When you have a municipality with a daily population of over 8.5 million, something like an annual ‘emergency preparedness day’ for the community would be completely inadequate. Education of such a large citizenry requires poly-pedagogical approaches, and this podcast is but one of those smaller, but certainly useful ones.

​

NYCEM is led by Commissioner Joseph Esposito, who prior to being with Emergency Management, spent 40 years with the NYPD, and retired as Chief of Department. Guests on the first episode of Prep Talk were Joseph Esposito and Joseph Pfeifer, Chief of Counterterrorism and Emergency Preparedness for the New York Fire Department. NYCEM has approximately 200 employees and staffs a 24/7 Watch Command which keeps eyes and ears over America’s largest city. NYCEM officers respond to large emergency operations across the 5 boroughs, providing liaison and inter-agency coordination from the field; they also maintain a state of the art Emergency Operation Center which is the strategic inter-agency hub for city-wide emergency and disaster response command.

​

The show and its feeds are available on iTunes for Apple devices and SoundCloud for Android and other devices. The URL for the show is:

 

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/em/about/podcasts.page

​

​

​