Faculty Expertise: Assistant Professor Njoki Mwarumba Shares Insights on Disaster Preparedness 

Natural disasters have been a frequent topic in the news, and Assistant Professor of Emergency Management Njoki Mwarumba has shared her expertise with the public across New York state in recent interviews with WAMC, WXXI, WNYT, and CBS 6. The classes Mwarumba teaches cover everything from the stages of disaster preparedness to disaster mental health, communication, and hazmat management.

According to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, 2024 saw 27 individual weather and climate disasters, causing at least $1 billion in damages.  

“In disaster science, we define disasters as a confluence of multiple realities and multiple experiences…anchored on the built environment,” says Mwarumba. 

She references three key components: physical infrastructure, the human aspect, and the environment.  

“When all three of these combine and are not in balance, the risk of a disaster is increased,” she says. “Sometimes it just takes something that tips it to become a disaster. It’s almost like the butterfly effect.” 

Are we seeing more disasters lately? According to Mwarumba, the answer is yes.  

“We’re seeing more because increasingly, these three ecosystems seem to be coming into contact with each other,” she notes. “Therefore, there’s an increased risk toward hazards impacting us.” 

The impact is clear in New York state, where this summer alone has seen flash flooding and residual wildfire smoke from Canada.  

Mwarumba says that there are quick onset disasters, such as wildfires, and then there are slow onset disasters, like climate change.  

“Climate change is ubiquitous, because it’s impacting the U.S. globally,” she says. “There are geographical locations that are going to be impacted more significantly, more visibly, than others. There’s the direct, obvious, visible climate change impacts that are impacting the intensity of disasters, the frequency of disasters, and the combinations.” 

She cites the wildfires as an example of borderless disasters.  

“When you look at fire for example, when we have fires burning more intensely and longer, and shorter recovery times, it means that you as a human do not have the recovery time, and the ecosystem also doesn’t have the natural recovery time that it needs to regenerate,” she says. 

However, all hope is not lost – this is where disaster mitigation comes into play.  

“Public health concerns can be addressed before the impact,” Mwarumba said. “I always like to emphasize that because we often think about disasters when they’re right in front of us.”   

Mwarumba describes mitigation as having two components: structural and non-structural. Structural components include things like air quality systems and levies, and non-structural components include things like policies and laws. 

“In response and recovery, being able to prepare for a disaster looks like decision makers, politicians, family members, understanding the value of mitigation,” she says. 

She highlights SUNY Empire as a good example of this due to the university’s investment in its Safety and Security department, despite being an online university.  

Disaster mitigation and the impact of disasters look different for everyone, however. 

“We are not impacted by disasters equally,” Mwarumba says. “In general, the people with more choices are less impacted. The people with less choices are more severely impacted.” 

Mwarumba gives examples of people with language barriers, those who have to work outdoors, and those on the front lines of disasters as being particularly socially vulnerable. While everyone may not have the same means or ability to prepare or avoid disasters, she urges people to keep up with the latest information in their communities as they are able. 

She notes that collective action and cooperation is needed for disaster preparedness and emergency management. 

“It’s resources, but it is also collective action. We cannot resolve global disasters nationally. All disasters start locally. It is the local community that is left recovering from what happened.”