Operational talk for disaster-minded professionals.
Disaster Zone is a working-professional interview show about emergencies, disasters, and the systems built to handle them. Eric Holdeman talks with practitioners across nonprofit response, FEMA changes, healthcare security, drones, climate resilience, and human resources.
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Disaster Zone is a practitioner-centered show about the messy systems behind emergencies. It is not built around spectacle. Eric Holdeman uses long-form interviews to examine how disasters are prepared for, managed, funded, staffed, and sometimes mishandled. The guest list in recent episodes stretches across the field: Project HOPE response leadership, counter-drone policy, healthcare facility resilience, FEMA reform, climate resilience, and human resources. That range gives the show a broad view of disaster work without losing its operational spine. Episodes often start with the guest's education and work history. That habit matters. It shows how people arrive at emergency management from paramedic work, security management, freshwater ecology, HR, consulting, policy analysis, logistics, and public safety. From there, the conversations move into practical pressure points. How large is the first team on the ground after an international emergency? When should local language skills shape hiring? Why do organizations write plans and then fail to follow them? What happens when drones become an active threat around public events or infrastructure? How should healthcare facilities train leadership before panic replaces procedure? The show is especially strong when it connects policy decisions to field consequences. FEMA changes are treated as long-term choices, not just political news. Climate attribution comes up as a tool for understanding damage, accountability, and future policy. Workplace episodes broaden the definition of resilience, looking at performance reviews and layoffs as moments where organizational culture either holds or breaks. The tone is steady and direct. Holdeman asks plain questions, adds working examples, and keeps bringing the discussion back to what agencies, facilities, managers, and individuals can do next. Disaster Zone suits emergency managers, public safety professionals, facility leaders, nonprofit responders, policy watchers, and preparedness-minded listeners who want detailed conversations rather than crisis headlines.
Made for: Disaster Zone is for emergency managers, public safety staff, healthcare facility leaders, nonprofit responders, policy professionals, and preparedness-focused listeners. It also fits managers who see staffing and planning as part of real-world resilience.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by pairing career-grounded interviews with concrete operational questions: deployment size, local language capacity, drills, liability, FEMA structure, and organizational behavior under stress. It treats disasters as systems problems, not isolated events.
Disaster Zone is hosted by Eric Holdeman, an emergency manager with over 30 years of experience at the federal, state and local levels of government. Disaster Zone is a podcast that focuses on all facets of disasters; the before, during and after of events that are increasingly impacting communities around the world. Podcasts run between 35-45 minutes with a mix of guests covering a range of disasters and issues that flow from them. Story topics and suggestions for people to interview are welcomed. You can contact the host via email.
A drone threat, a FEMA overhaul, a hospital drill: Eric Holdeman keeps your preparedness brain on call.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at how Project HOPE builds disaster response around local actors, language capacity, and scalable teams.
Project HOPE's disaster work is framed through the practical mechanics of response: an advance team of about eight to ten people, local partnerships, language capacity, and an emphasis on strengthening health systems beyond the immediate crisis.
A practical Disaster Zone conversation on making performance evaluations part of real personnel development.
Disaster Zone treats performance appraisals as a serious part of management, not just a required workplace ritual. Eric Holdeman speaks with Ken Lloyd, a PhD, management consultant, author, and public speaker whose work spans organizational development, human resources,…
A practical conversation about turning hospital resilience plans into practiced responses when disaster disrupts routine.
Healthcare resilience depends on more than hardened facilities. It depends on whether hospital leaders can make clear decisions when pressure turns written plans into something harder to reach.
A focused climate-resilience discussion connecting FEMA changes, attribution science, litigation, and public accountability.
Disaster Zone brings FEMA's shifting role into the climate-resilience conversation, with Eric Holdeman's questions setting up Shanna Gubardi's view from policy work, floodplain management, and climate attribution.
From the Titanic to Hurricane Ida, disasters talked through.
Eric Holdeman interviews life coach Meg Davis about strategies for emergency managers to avoid burnout and thrive under pressure.
Eric Holden interviews Jim Chukansky about handling layoffs with empathy and the challenges of doing it properly.
Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate discusses his background and the future of FEMA reform.
Eric Holdeman interviews Arlen Fuller, Director of Emergency and Preparedness Response for Project HOPE, about the organization's international missions and disaster response functions.
Ken Lloyd discusses his background in organizational development and his book on performance appraisals.
Eric Holderman interviews Brett Feddersen about the need for counter-drone systems to protect against criminal and malicious drone use.
Host Eric Holdeman interviews security expert Martin Green about steps healthcare facilities can take to improve security and resilience.
Eric Holderman interviews Shanna Gubardi about proposed changes to FEMA and her background in climate resilience policy.
Major General Gent Welsh says Washington’s 8,000-member Guard is built chiefly as the Army and Air Force’s combat reserve, not as a first-choice disaster force.
Pierce County floodplain administrator Helmut Schmidt says floodplain buyouts can reduce risk by moving people away from rivers.
Brian Kuhn's advice is to make emergency decisions before certainty arrives, especially when a hurricane evacuation could prevent storm-surge deaths.
Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate discusses his background and the future of FEMA reform.
HR expert Jim Chukansky discusses how to handle layoffs with empathy and the challenges of doing it properly.