#MustRead #EM news, analysis, & much-needed snark from Dr @samlmontano.bsky.social. Reading Dr. Sam’s newsletter is the only time I feel remotely reassured that I’m not going crazy when I read emergency management-related news.

I will admit the Eddie Compass jump scare got me. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Waking up to discover that evidence has been released proving something we all knew. The Supreme Court's efforts to stop the Obama clean power plant rules were rooted in explicit, corrupt efforts to protect the fossil fuel industry.

The April Disasterology Newsletter proves the value of saving receipts. open.substack.com/pub/disaster...

It continues to be shocking how few of the top leadership positions at FEMA are filled right now. According to their website (which says it was last updated yesterday, despite the bizarre shutdown situation) FEMA does not have an administrator, deputy administrator or a deputy chief of staff.

The head of the FBI isn't supposed to be getting blackout drunk. He's supposed to be cross-dressing

it is wild to me to have a colleague say that using genAI to do a "first analysis" of a bunch of papers to get summaries and then engage with those summaries is a legitimate way to do any sort of scholarship like fucking hell how are you calling yourself a scholar

This is genuinely the first media strategy I’ve seen in years that I think might save us.

HELLO??? Trump is nominating the guy they fired from FEMA a few months ago to lead FEMA. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/u...

At the risk of sharing a Hagerty ad… this is a useful breakdown of the BRIC changes. This is going to be an equity bloodbath, I fear. hagertyconsulting.com/bric-2-0-a-n...

How is “viewpoint diversity” not just affirmative action for people with bad ideas

Class discussion of dreams in today’s disaster recovery class on the 9/11 memorial, museum, and gift shop. I love lectures where there are no right answers and everyone leaves upset but in different ways! 💁🏼‍♀️

62 million?!?!?! How sure are we about “not all men”? Jesus Christ.

hahahaha fuck them up!

A person who genuinely believed that a population collapse threatened their country's existence would favor dramatically increased immigration to offset declining birth rates. That the Millers favor the opposite is because of racism: a whiter America is more important than a thriving one.

NYT cooking page has basically no meat on it "Dumplings With Peas" "Broccoli Cheddar Beans"

Not a single person working in all of emergency management has told me a single thing about World Cup preparedness efforts that would suggest this is going to go well. Nightmare all around.

👇👇👇

Gregg Phillips waking up in the McDonalds parking lot.

I have very good emergency management memes for the newsletter this month so we have that going for us.

Babe, wake up. New Gregg Phillips lore just dropped. Satan tried to kill him in Spain and he has a superhero girlfriend. www.cnn.com/2026/04/14/p...

👏👏👏

A reminder that it is The Florida Division of Emergency Management under the direction of Kevin Guthrie that built and is operating this facility which is in direct conflict with emergency management's humanitarian responsibility. disasterology.substack.com/p/disasterol...

where i grew up “weak” had somehow become a synonym for “dope” or “cool” and so part of me reads “the pope is weak on crime” as “the pope thinks crime is cool as hell”

I’ll have what Hungary’s having.

I hope Clara Barton starts haunting him.

DOCTOR COSTUME

And the disaster NGOs have entered the chat...

Going to show this to my dog next time she’s mad that I’ve gone to the store without her. “Yeah, well at least I didn’t go all the way to the MOON”.

it'll be back in three days

ME: I need to insert a footnote MICROSOFT WORD: *spitting blood* fuck you, fuck your mother and fuck your footnote

Journalists know that losing the Wayback Machine would be a nightmare: www.wired.com/story/the-in...

Realizing now, as a lifelong atheist, that those 8 years of Catholic school were ~so worth it~ just so I could fully appreciate this deeply unhinged moment in history.

Folks, the Hungarians just ousted Orban after he spent a decade and a half consolidating power. The odds the Hungarian resistance faced were far worse than what we’re facing in the US. Like abolitionists and civil rights activists have learned here, everything seems impossible until it isn’t.

I'm going to point out that we spent a shit ton of taxpayer money on moderna and he's stealing it from us.

Apropos of nothing, just something I think about a lot: During the worst pandemic in a century, lots of people told a bunch of outrageous lies that caused much, much more death. It was one of the more grotesque moral crimes I've ever witnessed & zero (0) of those involved faced any consequences.

Going to sit out on the porch and read for the rest of the day. This has been a WEEK. 🫡

I think many people mistakenly believe this place was shut down last year. It is very much still functioning and still torturing people.

Bari Weiss’s CBS News? Hegseth is toast lol

Starting to worry about what’s going to happen when we don’t have our emotional support astronauts to go check in on every day.

I just know my high school theology teacher is having the time of his life with this Avignon Papacy situation. Happy for him.

So #MarkwayneMullin tells reporters: “We shouldn’t look at #FEMA as being a first responder, but … as supporting the first responders you already have.” That’s ALREADY the US approach to #EmergencyManagrment; it has been for decades. But . . . www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026... #EM

new fun drinking game: take a shot every time a coworker says, “i’m scared for this fire season” (please don’t do this. you’ll be teleporting to a waffle house by 10am)

I genuinely can't stop thinking about the Iranian kids who spent yesterday wondering if they were all going to die and what that day will do to them for the rest of their lives.

Going to rewatch that show Designated Survivor tonight for no particular reason at all.

God this poem is haunting me again.

AOC: “This is a threat of genocide & merits removal from office. The President’s mental faculties are collapsing & cannot be trusted. To every individual in the President’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat”

This study shows that disinformation spreads, not as “false facts”, but as narratives. Compare that to how mis- and disinformation are often operationalized in the big-N quantitative and experimental research in the Nature/Science journals — that’s a major weakness in the field.

BREAKING: Pope Leo XIV declares the Iran War is “unjust” and “is not resolving anything.” After suggesting Trump is committing war crimes by targeting civilian infrastructure, he called on Americans to contact Congress to help end the war.

just to be clear, everyone, when 8 pm EDT comes and goes, regardless of what does or does not happen, the president still threatened genocide and war crimes and we should still impeach, arrest, and try him