Being Weather-Ready & Prepared for Any Crisis with Ashley Morris

Join Kyle David in this episode of the Everything Weather Podcast, as we talk with Ashley Morris, the Preparedness and Outreach Division Manager for Prince George's County Office of Emergency Management in Maryland. Ashley brings a unique perspective with her background in geosciences and ongoing doctorate work in emergency management. We discuss Ashley's journey into the world of weather and emergency management, explore her pivotal role in handling local and regional emergencies, and dive into the complexities of community engagement and disaster risk mitigation. The episode also features fun games about weather-themed sports teams and trivia, adding a lighter touch to this insightful conversation.

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About the Everything Weather Podcast

A weekly podcast where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather and the many things that connect to it, and have a little fun along the way. The podcast is hosted and produced by Kyle David, a meteorologist and digital science content producer based in New Jersey.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro & Welcome
• 1:00 Keep 4 Cut 5: Weather-Themed Sports Teams
• 3:46 Ashley's Weather Story
• 6:57 From Meteorology to Emergency Management
• 10:37 Challenges in Weather Communication
• 15:15 Forecasting and Emergency Management
• 27:39 Highs and Lows in Emergency Management
• 31:39 Favorite Weather and Non-Weather Events in Emergency Management
• 36:19 This Day in Weather History: 1966 Candlestick Park Tornado Series
• 41:37 Lightning Round
• 48:28 Balancing Multiple Roles in Emergency Management
• 51:23 Emotional Challenges in Weather Response
• 54:49 Community Engagement in Emergency Management
• 1:00:10 The Role of Local Emergency Management
• 1:07:52 Pursuing a Doctorate in Emergency Management
• 1:10:15 The Future of Training & Technology in Emergency Manaement
• 1:16:53 STEM in Emergency Management
• 1:21:56 Advice for Aspirin Emergency Managers & Final Thoughts
• 1:24:51 Weather or Not Trivia
• 1:29:55 Closing

Transcript

Kyle David: 0:07

Hello and welcome to the Everything Weather podcast, where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather, and have a little fun along the way. I'm your host, Kyle David. And today on the show, we're excited to have Ashley Morris. Ashley is the preparedness and outreach division manager for the Prince George's County office of emergency management in Maryland, as well as an active member of both the national capital region and the Maryland incident management teams. She has a background in geosciences and is working on a doctorate degree in emergency management to bridge the world of atmospheric sciences and emergency management. Hi, Ashley, and welcome to the podcast.

Ashley Morris: 0:45

Hi, thank you so much for having me. Super excited to talk about disaster management, emergency management, and of course my favorite, weather.

Kyle David: 0:53

Absolutely, I'm looking forward to the conversation. I'm sure everybody is looking forward to the conversation as well. And we also have some fun games for you. And speaking of, let's get into our first fun game. Keep four, cut five of these weather themed sports teams. So I have nine weather themed sports teams from across different sports. Your job is to keep four of them and cut five. So, we have the Tampa Bay Lightning. Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, Miami Heat, Phoenix Suns, Oklahoma City Thunder, the Tri City Dust Devils, which is the High A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels, The Wichita Wind Surge, the AA affiliate of the Minnesota Twins, and the Omaha Storm Chasers, the AAA affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.

Ashley Morris: 1:41

Alright, so, I definitely have to pick the Lightning, and also the Hurricanes, because, uh, both of those are hockey teams, big hockey fan, and then they have really cool logos. Especially the Hurricanes. Honestly, I almost picked the Hurricanes as my favorite hockey team. Have to go with the Suns, even though the Suns Suns are not the best kind of weather. I'm more of a convective girl, don't really like the clear days, but I am a Phoenix Suns fan. Steve Nash. Big fan. And then I will go ahead and just throw my hat in there for Storm Chasers. Why not? Um, I've actually never seen their logo, so very interested to know what that would look like.

Kyle David: 2:14

Yeah, I actually didn't even know that was a team. I heard of the Wind Surge from Wichita, but I've not heard of the Dust Devils or the Storm Chasers. Those are like, really deep into minor league baseball. And surprisingly, there's no football teams on here. Neither NFL or UFL teams that have weather themed teams.

Ashley Morris: 2:33

Which is unfortunate.

Kyle David: 2:35

Yeah, come on, NFL, get some weather themed teams in there. So, alright, you are keeping the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Carolina Hurricanes, the Phoenix Suns, and the Omaha Storm Chasers. That means Colorado Avalanche, Miami Heat,

Ashley Morris: 2:51

Um, the Thunder are too close to the Lightning. I hate snow, so I'm never gonna pick any kind of snow affiliated team.

Kyle David: 2:58

So the Avalanche, the Thunder, the Dust Devils, and the Windsurge all get the axe from Ashley Morris.

Ashley Morris: 3:06

That's right.

Kyle David: 3:08

And just curious, if you could come up with one football weather themed team, what would it be?

Ashley Morris: 3:14

Oh, man. That's a good question. I feel like we should do something with Hail.

Kyle David: 3:19

Hail doesn't get a lot of love with sports teams, so I think Texas would be a good team for the Texas Hailstones or the Texas Hailstorms.

Ashley Morris: 3:28

There you go, yeah. I don't know, for some reason when I was thinking football, then like Gorilla Hail popped in my head, and then I was like, I don't know, football, Gorilla Hail.

Kyle David: 3:37

The Gorilla Hails. That would be a good team. I'm sure Reed Timmer would love that a lot.

Ashley Morris: 3:42

Of course.

Kyle David: 3:44

Alright, well that's our first fun game. But let's get into the conversation about you and your work and how you eventually got to where you are. So everybody on the podcast, I ask them about their weather story. In the trade we talk about the weather story as the day's weather, what's going on across the region, the country, the world. But here I talk about The experiences that led to where you are today. So, Ashley, tell me about your weather story and what got you interested in everything weather.

Ashley Morris: 4:12

Yeah, so, it's funny, I've always loved weather. Ever since I was like, six or seven years old, I've just had a passion for weather. I remember being in elementary school and always asking to buy lightning books and all this stuff. We did have one event that I can remember that kind of sparked some of my interest in like, tracking weather. recording weather, and stuff like that. And that would be just those typical monsoon thunderstorms in New Mexico. So I grew up in the Four Corners area, about three hours north of Albuquerque, up in the mountains. And so it's not like we really had a lot of weather related disasters up there. Typically you'll get summer thunderstorms in the desert. You get a little bit of flash flooding and stuff, but that's really it. And I believe I was up at the football field while my dad and his friend were running some miles around a track or something. And again, I was like six or seven. And a thunderstorm moved in and lightning was extremely close to us, really close. And being a little kid, I was super, super scared. Definitely crying, definitely was trying to hide under this awning, and my dad's friend was with me, and I remember him teaching me how to count the seconds of lightning, like everyone does, the one one thousand, two one thousand, and I think he was just trying to do that to calm me down, because I'm sure I was a hysterical seven year old, but I remember ever since then always doing that, and so from seven to eight to nine to ten, anytime thunderstorms would be around my house up in New Mexico, I would. Do what you shouldn't do, go outside, look at the lightning, watch the sky, and as soon as I would see the lightning I would count the seconds. And then, just counting the seconds would evolve to journaling the seconds of the lightning. And then eventually, like probably in third grade, fourth grade, I started actually drawing the shapes. So I'd see the lightning, draw the shapes, count the seconds, write the miles. And I just had like logs of lightning for a long time. In middle school, that kind of graduated to asking my parents for weather instruments, a little backyard weather station. And every day I would wake up and record the pressure and all of that in my little weather journal. And then that graduated to just me going to high school and knowing I wanted to be a meteorologist. And it was really cool because I never had a question on what I wanted to do. It was always weather all the time, meteorology all the time, this is it. Got through high school. Got into Texas Tech, was on the track to do atmospheric science all the way up until grad school, and then did the diversion into emergency management, but I still feel like I do meteorology almost every day. So, always have loved it. It's always been a hobby of mine, and I love that I actually get to do my day job and do what I've been doing, what I feel like, my entire life.

Kyle David: 6:57

So I'm curious, what inspired you to Shift gears from strictly meteorology to go more into emergency management.

Ashley Morris: 7:05

Yeah, so it's funny because like I said, I always had NWS on the goal list, like from middle school, the high school to undergrad, and then even getting accepted into grad school at Tech with atmospheric science program. NWS was the end all be all. But, when I went to AMS, I went to one of the student conferences when I was an undergrad, and I watched this really cool presentation by a Florida emergency management meteorologist who was talking about how it was her job to do the state briefings. Tell the governor kind of what the forecast outcomes were, and be in that realm. And before that, I never even heard or knew what emergency management was. I would see emergency managers occasionally on the Weather Channel, because they would call them during disasters and storms and stuff. But I didn't know until then, and so I pocketed that as maybe a backup, or something that maybe I would be interested in doing. In graduate school. I started doing my coursework up there, and then we had a variety of different weather related disasters around that time. So, the 2011 Alabama outbreaks, we had Joplin, we had a lot of different storm events that were warned and forecasted really well. but had a huge amount of fatalities. And I just remember sitting up in my graduate office thinking, what if we could be perfect at forecasting and perfect at warning? Would that actually lead to no fatalities? And during that time, it was no. I mean, if you look at Joplin or you look at a variety of these different events, they had more than ample time. And the time wasn't the issue. It was the communication. It was the warning systems. It was shelter access. And it was government resources. And so, I actually decided then that maybe if I went into EM, I'd be able to make more of a difference with reducing weather related fatalities on that side of the house, and then also hopefully help with some of the miscommunication and misanalysis of weather forecasts and science in public sector and decision making.

Kyle David: 9:04

Of all those events that you'd mentioned, the 2011 super outbreak and all the other Tornado events that you were watching unfold while you were working on your grad school work. What's one that stands out to you and what's something that you've learned from that?

Ashley Morris: 9:19

I still definitely think Joplin was the biggest one for me. And it was mostly because when you have warnings out in your lead time so great, you expect people to be able to be safe. And having the huge amount of devastation and the fatalities that they had really struck me. And I think, too, watching some of the coverage from back then showed so many gaps in first response, but also government communications and just resource availability and stuff. And so, I think, ultimately, if those events taught me anything, it was that I don't think we can solve human fatalities with weather with just a better forecast or just a better warning. I think we have to work together as a society and fix things like Codes, shelter access, and the entire design of society. Because, again, it's great to get the warning, it's great to know, uh, EF 5 is coming down your door in an hour, but if you don't have anywhere to go, or you can't interpret the warning, then it doesn't really do you any good. So I think that was what really clicked with me in my brain, to pursue government or emergency management and see how we could enhance that. Because meteorology's been getting better. So it's kind of time to Make the other side start stepping up.

Kyle David: 10:36

Yeah, definitely. And not just with how we design things in society, but also how we communicate things about weather events and stuff. And on that note, how much experience have you had in grad school, and even a little bit with your doctorate, in communicating the different risks with the weather and other natural disasters?

Ashley Morris: 10:56

I would say at the time when I was watching all of that in school, nothing like I know now because even though you know you're learning stuff, you're not doing it. But now, being almost eight years in the field, we do so much of that, just communication of the weather to our colleagues, public safety, first response, the public, to really better understand how they interpret that. And I think for me, what I've learned over eight years is being someone very passionate about weather and all of that, I thought that it would be easy to communicate some of this stuff in terms of just making sure that people knew that they needed to be safe. And I thought that our job would be done if we did that. As in, someone would say, oh, okay, yeah, like I get it, the tornado's coming, I'm gonna do something. Now, eight years later, I would say it's way more complex than that. A lot of the people I serve have really busy lives. They have a lot of stuff going on. And when we're telling them about different hazards or storms, and sometimes these storms aren't necessarily forecasted 100%, right? We've got some variability. It is hard for me to ask my residents to take action on every watch or everything that I'm trying to tell them. And so I think I have a little bit of better understanding of why people don't always take action. And I try to use that humility a little bit to try to figure out how I can interact with them in their system to get them to do what they need to do as opposed to just expecting them to drop everything. So it's just learning more on the job and on the fly as opposed to sitting there and hoping that you have the best outcome like I did when I was in grad school.

Kyle David: 12:32

So on that note of different factors that Lead to people not responding whether that's by choice or by circumstance. What are the typical factors that? hinder people from acting on weather warnings, weather communications, and what's one that surprises you the most?

Ashley Morris: 12:50

I think this mostly pertains to snow and I've seen it here and I've seen it a lot of places and I think it really hit home during COVID when we started talking about essential personnel and things like that. It's Easy for us to say, stay at home, Gary Snow. That's great if you don't have work, or you have an ability to take off work, or you don't have something that you have to do. We know a lot of people, especially in my jurisdiction, have either essential jobs, or maybe they don't have leave, or maybe they don't have child care, or there's some kind of element to their life that They cannot stay home. They have to drive to work. If they don't go to work, they're going to be laid off. They're going to lose their job or something, or there's some kind of critical aspect to that. And so with that, again, I think that's a little more of that humility of understanding. I want them to be safe, but. They have so many different variables that they have to try to determine. So, how can we work with them to make sure that they can continue to get what they need to live, but be safe? But that would be one example. I think just the whole essential workers, and then two, just some workplaces not having telework option, or not being very forgiving of their staff of doing that. Other than that, I think that's the biggest one. I try to tell myself here, because we have a lot of different, like, minor severe weather risks that actually end up blossoming into a lot worse. It's hard for me to ask my residents to cancel every barbecue that they have for every marginal risk that we have here that sometimes blows up. And I understand that better now. When I was studying meteorology back in the day, I'd be like, well, why wouldn't you do this every time? Well, it's because if we did it every time, then they'd never be able to have their barbecue or. So it's just, it's an intricate balance of just understanding how busy people are and how people are really trying to solve problems every day just to live. So whether it's just one aspect or hazard to everyday problems, family challenges, income, all sorts of different things like that.

Kyle David: 14:51

And going back to what you said earlier about there have been some times where a marginal or small risk ended up blossoming into something more. Can you share an experience where a forecast said something would be a minor event and ended up turning into something much more? And then an experience where something was posed as the biggest threat to your area but ended up coming out as

Ashley Morris: 15:15

My biggest example for that would definitely be when we had I think at least 12, we had at least 12 tornadoes last June on a day that I don't even think we had a 2%. I'd have to go back and see with SBC, but none of us were really expecting tornadoes and we had one fairly large tornado work its way across Montgomery County just north of D. C. and it was around 3 to 5 peak travel time commuting, and then worked up into Columbia all the way up to Northern Maryland. And like I said, none of us were expecting that, including me, who I typically stay on top of convective risks a lot more than some of my other emergency management partners do. So that was challenging because we didn't really message tornadoes that day. I think we probably messaged a little more like straight line winds or something else. And it was definitely a shocker because I don't think anybody anticipated 12 different tornadoes. All across the state of Maryland in June, and I would actually come around to say even the opposite has happened when we had a moderate risk. I think last year that didn't really pan out too much on on a squall line or a wind threat, and then we often have convective risk that it's just so hard to nail down. We can have enhanced that don't make it. And then. More often than not, we really do have those low ends that do. And so, living in Texas, studying a lot of tornado stuff, because I went to school in West Texas, so that's the dry line magic area. And then starting my career outside of Austin, like, I'm very seasoned with convective forecasting. Tornadoes, stuff like that. Coming out here and trying to forecast, like, severe weather out here in Maryland or tornadoes or spin ups or anything like that is so hard. It is a completely different game and I really wish that we would see more research for tornado genesis out here because I just think there's got to be some kind of dynamics with the Chesapeake Bay and just the environment that makes it almost like a little mini hotspot in the Atlantic for just these EF1s, EF0s every summer.

Kyle David: 17:15

Yeah, and I think to some extent, like what you said with the influencing of the Chesapeake Bay, I think there's some stuff going on with that in New Jersey with the Delaware Bay, especially for some parts of southern New Jersey, because that's where the majority of the state's tornadoes are. I know that because I've lived here pretty much all my life. But you experienced monsoon thunderstorms out in the four corners. You experienced dry lines, severe weather out in the Southern Plains of Texas. And then you transitioned to Maryland. What would you say is the biggest growing pain for you in terms of adjusting to communicating the weather here?

Ashley Morris: 17:50

Honestly, that, in terms of forecasting, because I've always done a little bit of my own forecasting, weather briefing, and then I've always done social media for my offices and stuff like that. I would say, trying to figure out how the weather works out here, because it's just a different dynamic, it's a different environment. But really, honestly, the complexity of the environment, but the complexity of the people. So in terms of Prince George's County, we have almost a million residents and we have large amounts of diversity. We have over 10 different languages, a ton of different cultures, just so much great diversity. And so trying to figure out how to message risks to everybody. is a lot more challenging than in some of the smaller suburbs that I used to work in. And one of my biggest concerns that I've noticed with some of these little tornado events and even some of the tropical events is, we do have a lot of people who don't have the experience of tornadoes. So either they grew up somewhere else and they moved here, or they weren't. Growing up in Oklahoma or anything like that, so they don't have the exposure to it, there's a little bit of a confusion on what to do and how to understand it. And so we try to message at a very simple level with that, and we try to really teach tornado sheltering and stuff like that, usually during the watch period or right before, and we try to put it out to the community to where it can reach everyone. Obviously, I think we have a lot more room to grow with that, like with translation and with partnerships, but that's our goal. attempt for now, just trying to get it out to everybody. I definitely say the changing weather and then just being in a place where people aren't used to certain severe modes. And then lastly, I'd say having people focus on what the primary hazard is with that, because we have had different storms that maybe flash flooding risk was higher than tornado, but you'll see a lot of like even public safety agencies and the public overly focus on the tornado scary threat as opposed to the water flood threat. And trying to get them in line with that, so.

Kyle David: 19:51

I like your answer, and you kind of dived into the people aspect, because each location has a different demographic, and that can influence the weather communication. You're the first person that has mentioned that in their answer, between differences between location and weather.

Ashley Morris: 20:10

Yeah, and I think it's something we're always trying to learn more about, and I think as I continue with this specific position where I'm doing plans and outreach, I'm going out more and having interactions with people and sometimes I'll just bring up, Oh, what about the weather? And it's interesting to hear what the public say. And it helps this kind of message But I think we definitely have a lot more room to grow in that. I always like to also use research and findings to help us guide how we're getting out certain weather information to certain diverse populations that might have never seen it, or it might even be new to the region or the country in general.

Kyle David: 20:48

And before we dive into a little more about your role, going back to what you said about talking to your local people about the weather, what's been your favorite experience in talking about the weather too? Somebody who doesn't know much about the weather just wants to know what the day to day weather looks like and then what's been your most frustrating Experience talking to somebody about the weather

Ashley Morris: 21:09

so favorite I really enjoy just being the go to weather person in my office or even in the government I like sharing that I like trying to show my nerdiness I'll talk weather to really anybody. So anytime I get to fill that gap and be the go to, I really enjoy it. The most frustrating part, and it's funny because working in emergency management, you work with a lot of first response. And even emergency managers who come from first response. I would say I've done a lot of briefings and a lot of Briefings or sharing of information to my friends in public safety who will always come back and say, Oh, well, I'll just flip a coin and find out, or it must be nice to be paid to be wrong all the time, or the typical meteorology jokes that everyone thinks is funny, and I just tend to just laugh them off because Some of it's teasing, which is funny, but I think there still is this area of lack of trust in the science of meteorology. And what I have found with that, it's not a personal lack of trust, it's just that they don't understand how we make forecasts, and they don't understand where the uncertainty comes from. So that when we're trying to communicate that, and it misses They do think we're just guessing because they don't understand the complexity with weather observations, numerical weather prediction, things like that. So Going back to my favorite thing again, I really like giving them a little bit of insight with how models work. Hey, this is what the models are saying, but this is why I'm concerned that it might not pan out. Or this is a really hard forecast because I've got five different models giving five really different things, and I really honestly can't tell you which one is actually going to pan out. And some of them, the light, Lights up in their eyes when you do that and it's just cool to be able to share a little bit of the science But also try to work against some of those Typical meteorological judgments that we get about always being wrong or it not being a true science when you're forecasting

Kyle David: 23:08

If I had a dollar for every time I heard somebody say that to me I would be rich and I try to explain to people like it's not a perfect science in terms of weather forecasting you have to have a Perfect idea of what's going on, not only across the world, but from the ground up, and we don't have that. So, there are gaps in that, and so that's why forecasting is not a perfect science. That's why I try to say to people, and as you said, the light bulb goes off, they're like, Oh, okay, I understand.

Ashley Morris: 23:41

Yeah, and I think we could do a better job. with emergency managers and public safety of giving some insight of that. So I've been trying to push for maybe some weather related trainings that would be more about what a weather forecast is and how it's put together so that they just better understand how they're doing it. NWS isn't just throwing a bunch of numbers on a page and telling you. There's an entire process with all these observations and everything else, and I feel like if we were to pull the hood back and let emergency managers and other folks see that, they would better understand when they're getting briefings that either have high probability, low probability, or just completely bust or miss. Rather than throwing eggs, they'd be a little more Understanding or not so angry. I guess you could say

Kyle David: 24:28

we're frustrated or just overall like negative feelings towards the meteorology community.

Ashley Morris: 24:35

Yeah. I think it's all about just giving insight, like showing a little more of what it is and why it works and where we're trying to get better, but also showing the areas that we know probably aren't going to necessarily get better. Like you said, like we're not going to ever really be able to measure observations at every single point on the surface all the way up. There's going to be some kind of interpolation there that you're going to have to deal with that and plugging that into the models, but I think it's cool too to also teach them how much we've improved with modeling and observations because to be honest, compare now to forecast 10 years ago, pretty good.

Kyle David: 25:12

It's getting a lot better and hopefully it'll get better soon with technological advancements and stuff, but on your note, that actually, I want to segue into a little bit more about the emergency management work that you do. So. In a way, I want to explore that a little more. So first off for the people who are not familiar with emergency management, what does that entail? And then second off, how do you contribute your meteorological expertise to the field of emergency management in your role?

Ashley Morris: 25:43

So emergency management, I like to call disaster management. And mostly the reason I do that is because. When I go get a haircut or I go to get a manicure and the lady asks me, what do you do? And I say emergency management. They're like, what's that? And then even a few people who might be from the first response world, they might have heard emergency management, but they typically think, oh, you ride a fire truck or you work for dispatch or something. So I always like to say, no, it is disaster management. So we are in the duty or the act of doing Disaster preparedness, disaster response, disaster recovery, and disaster mitigation. So the entire life cycle of what a disaster could be. The before, the during, the after, and then of course we're working really hard to either lessen disaster impact or eliminate completely with mitigation from a future disaster. Emergency management, we have a lot of different sectors. We have government emergency management on the local, state, federal level. We also have private sector, uh, business continuity, risk management for, uh, private corporations. Uh, we also have, uh, hospital emergency management, uh, collegiate. Emergency management, school systems, almost anything you could think of. We're actually seeing emergency management professions grow in that. And so, typically, we manage all different kinds of disasters and hazards and risks. Most of those are weather related, but don't forget, we also cover man made hazards and also technological. So that could be terrorism, active shooter, civil unrest. Cyber attacks, dam failures, airplane crashes, transportation incidents, all those things. So our life can be very busy.

Kyle David: 27:30

Yeah, that's like the weather, it's a 24 7 business. There's always something going on in different areas of the country. And on that note, what's been a high point and a low point for you in your role in emergency management?

Ashley Morris: 27:45

High point, I think, is just finding the excitement in it. I've always been really passionate about helping people, but specifically about reducing weather related fatalities. And like I said before, I really feel like if you want to make a difference in that, EM is where to go. We're working on response and all those things I just said, preparing, responding, recovering, and making it better. So being able to really do that, but also being able to see where we can do more science in it. And I think what got me so excited as someone from STEM stepping into this EM role, which wasn't traditional at the time, was that, how much room we have to grow that. We want to see more data people and STEM and meteorology to come into emergency management and help with things like disaster mitigation projection, flood maps, flood awareness. We also do a variety of hazard assessments. So having someone understand weather related data, historic weather data, and being able to put it together in a way that makes sense is highly impactful to our programs and the people we serve. So that would definitely be the high point. And then also, just as a personal high point, being able to work weather related incidents, forecast them, give briefings, work the incident, and help people. It feels extremely rewarding, and it's great to go from start to finish. As a lot of meteorologists, start at forecasting and then they do the warning and then they might do some damage assessment or something but it's over. It's really rewarding in EM because you do the same thing or you start with the forecast, you're reading the data, you're doing all of that, but then you respond, you're helping with that, you organize that, and then you help with the recovery and the empowerment of the community. So I would say that was definitely a high point. Low point, I think there's two things here. One is I was not a traditional emergency manager. in terms of background. And so historically EM has been a little more militaristic, public safety, first response y. And I didn't know that coming in. Like, I was just like, oh, this is cool, like disasters, weather, meteorology. And when I stepped in, I definitely was the black sheep or the oddball. So dealing with a lot of these weird looks, who is she? I was 25, so super young. I was. science based, I wasn't riding fire trucks, things like that. That was definitely a challenge, but I think that I've found my spot in that. And I think as we continue to show the value of science and data in EM, we're being accepted more, not only by elected officials and leadership, but also by our colleagues in public safety. So again, being so. Data minded, driven, and community centric, we need to really advocate for the professionalization of our field. We do not have professional standards in terms of degrees, education, training, anything like that. And while that can be seen as a positive, it's also a struggle because you do tend to see a little bit of a lack of success. In certain disasters because of that, definitely a lack of consistency in professionalization. And then when you don't have professionalization, you also struggle in terms of progression. If you don't have hiring standards or if you don't have training, then how do you really determine what a leadership position should be in terms of a director or an emergency planner. Um, so those have been a little hard to deal with, but I try to be positive and say it's because our field's so young and it also gives us something to do. Let's aim for making our professional field a little better. Like, how can we improve that? How can we get better? So that's my answer for that.

Kyle David: 31:31

Definitely a lot to unpick there, and we'll, we'll talk about that a little more after the break, but before we go into break, I want to end on a lighter note. What's been your favorite weather event to cover in the emergency management role, and then what's been your favorite non weather event to cover?

Ashley Morris: 31:46

That's interesting. So, I've done a variety of different things. I've done severe weather, I've done tornado, I've done hurricane, coastal flood. And then I've done like special events and stuff like that. Honestly, I liked doing the coastal event, but it was not necessarily my favorite weather, but it was more because of the challenge. We didn't have any observations or gauges or anything for that certain response. And so it was really interesting for me to try to figure out and mostly use community spotters to tell me what the coastal flood range was, because we didn't have one gauge on the bay, which I thought was really interesting. Outside of that though, I would say definitely, I do like snow for spots, even though I hate snow. Ultimately, I really do prefer convective. It's just my favorite. I've always been a tornado, severe weather girl, so I really miss that up here. And hopefully I'll go back down to the south some day and enjoy that again.

Kyle David: 32:43

And then just to clarify, you said the coastal event, was there a specific one or just coastal events in general?

Ashley Morris: 32:48

This one, so this was like, oh, 2021. It was a specific one. I was working for Baltimore County. It didn't really have a name, and I think that's what made it interesting, because it was just a typical fall system, strong, was pushing the Chesapeake Bay up. And it was just challenging. It was challenging to forecast. It was challenging to communicate. I think we actually had some mistakes in communication because somebody said that the flooding was going to be as bad as Isabel. Which freaked everybody out because everybody remembers what Isabelle was and this wasn't even a tropical system like this was like a fall Coastal system like had nothing to do with Isabelle or anything like that or the dynamics but it was interesting because I ended up getting a list of spotters from the weather service and Calling them on the hour Basically asking them because they lived on the bay. How high is the water? How fast is it going up? Do you see any houses in the water? And like, I was relying on that community reporting for me to have better situational awareness because, again, I'm still so surprised we had no Baltimore County gauges on the Bay. And we are very vulnerable in terms of coastal flooding up there. And so, it was the first time I ever didn't actually have meteorological data. And I was like, uh, I don't know how I'm going to fill this, but it was definitely a challenge.

Kyle David: 34:08

Yeah, that does sound like a challenge, not being able to know what's going on and how to appropriately respond to that. And then, what's your favorite non weather event that you've worked on in your emergency management role?

Ashley Morris: 34:20

Non weather. That's really hard. I would probably say COVID, even though it's not really a favorite, but I liked it because it was a slow enough progression of an incident where you had enough time to research and set your cadence. But it also was challenging just because many of us have never dealt with that before. So trying to take on the personal challenges of COVID response and then also running it when most of us aren't public health experts or anything like that was definitely interesting.

Kyle David: 34:50

To the novelty of it was what interested you the most about that?

Ashley Morris: 34:55

Yeah, and again, the challenge, and for me, I think it's so important when you're working incidents, including weather, to see where the projection is going. What are people saying? How are people dealing with it? What are the actions being taken? How is your public information hitting? or not hitting. And so with this one, it was just very challenging because there was a lot of public information challenges. Are we communicating the right way? Are we setting up distribution right? Are we doing vaccination right? All of those different things was just very challenging to see and also record. But I will say, for many of us, I now feel like if we had another pandemic, we would know. Exactly what to do, but there were a lot of people that had to learn that on the fly because Pandemics are more of a public health expertise We support it, but we mostly focus on other high threat risks and stuff And so it just wasn't really on our bingo card for most of us

Kyle David: 35:49

Yeah That wasn't on the bingo card for a lot of people in 2020 and there was a lot of things that went on in that year for sure both weather and non weather related Alright, we're gonna take a quick break right here, but don't go anywhere. We still got lots more with Ashley Morris. Keep it right here On this day in weather history, we revisit the 1966 Candlestick Park Tornado series that devastated parts of Mississippi and Alabama. On March 3rd, 1966, the atmosphere over the deep south United States was ripe for violent, severe weather. Warm, moist air was funneling north from the Gulf of Mexico, and powerful, upper level winds were in place over the region. The final key ingredient was generally over the state of Mississippi. One supercell storm would start to take advantage of the volatile setup. Around 3 p. m. local time, the supercell storm would produce a weak tornado near Newelton, Louisiana. This tornado moved northeast, eventually crossing into Mississippi. On its way there, the tornado destroyed a barn and a home, damaged another barn and home, ripped power lines, and blew out the back glass of an automobile. The tornado was likely short lived, as the parent supercell thunderstorm would cycle, briefly weakening and dissipating its first tornado. However, this would not be the last tornado it produced. The supercell regained intensity and produced another, more powerful tornado at around 5, four p. m. local time just south of Leonard, Mississippi, the tornado first moved through primarily rural areas south of Raymond as it tracked northeast, heavily damaging a few barns and homes along its way. The tornado also toppled the almost 2000 foot broadcast tower for WLBT, the Jackson Television Around 4. 30pm local time, the tornado ripped through the southern limits of Jackson as a strong F4 or weak F5 tornado. It leveled the newly built Candlestick Park shopping center and tossed the structure's cinder bricks over long distances. Numerous homes and businesses were also completely decimated in the vicinity. Eyewitnesses reported the tornado scouring pavement and throwing cars over half a mile up the road. A tornado continued tracking through the southern portion of Jackson, destroying whatever was in its path. It severely twisted a glass factory, and leveled a brick Baptist church with such force. That the remaining rubble looked like damage from an explosion. Once it passed out of Jackson, the parent storm with its destructive tornado crossed the Pearl River and entered Rankin County. As it entered Rankin County, it destroyed the Flowood Industrial Park and passed very close to Jackson Evers International Airport. At this point, the tornado's progress became unclear as it tore through, at the time, a very rural area. Regardless, the parent storm and its tornado proceeded to cause significant damage near the Leesburg community. There, it reached its maximum strength of F5, sweeping away multiple homes, leveling large swaths of trees, scouring pavement and earth, and obliterating chicken houses. It maintained its extreme intensity as it moved into Scout County. The tornado continued east northeast, causing heavy damage near the community of Midway, before crossing briefly into Lee County. There, it completely destroyed more than 40 homes and buildings down to their foundations, between the communities of Madden and Salem. The tornado's carnage continued into Neshoba County, and just up to the border of Alabama, where dozens of homes were severely damaged or destroyed. Including the historic Carolina Church, this more than 100 year old church was completely leveled by the tornado. Once the tornado crossed into Alabama, the tornado caused significant damage through Pickens and Tuscaloosa counties before it dissipated at around 7. 45 p. m. local time, just to the north of the city of Tuscaloosa. The storm would continue moving northeast through central Alabama. and produce another brief tornado north of Birmingham, Alabama, at around 8 p. m. local time. Although this final tornado was not nearly as severe as the earlier tornado that tore through Mississippi and Alabama, despite the discrepancies with the path of the Candlestick Tornado, and whether this was one long track tornado or multiple tornadoes, The parent storm's 3 hour and 45 minute existence produced a more than 200 mile long path of damage. One of the longest damaged paths ever recorded. The most extensive damage from the tornado was in Jackson, Mississippi at the Candlestick Park Shopping Center from which the tornado gets its namesake. Much of the building was leveled with only one wall partially remaining. 12 people lost their lives and more than 100 people were injured from the destruction of the Candlestick Park Shopping Center. Overall, this Sequence of tornadoes claimed of 58 injured more than 500 others and caused more than 75 million in damages. Equivalent to 732 million in 2025, the F5 Candlestick Park Tornado was the second F tornado in Mississippi's history with the previous F5 Tornado occurring on December 5th, 1953. The Candlestick Park Tornado remains one of Mississippi's deadliest and longest tracking tornadoes on record. Hello and welcome back to the Everything Weather Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle David, and today we're joined by Ashley Morris. She is the Preparedness and Outreach Division Manager for the Prince George's County Office of Emergency Management in Maryland. And she's also active with two other incident management teams, both the National Capital Region and the Maryland Incident teams. And she's working on connecting the Geosciences, Meteorology, Atmospheric Sciences worlds with the Emergency Management world, which is exciting. We're going to talk a little bit more about that connection in the second half. But first, I've got another fun game for you, Ashley. Thanks, Ashley. We've got lightning round. So we've got 10 weather and non weather themed questions that I'm going to ask you and we'll try and knock them out in under two minutes. With that said, are you ready?

Ashley Morris: 42:26

I'm ready.

Kyle David: 42:27

First up. Ice storm or blizzard?

Ashley Morris: 42:32

Ice storm.

Kyle David: 42:33

Favorite comfort food?

Ashley Morris: 42:36

Oh, mac and cheese.

Kyle David: 42:38

Is there a weather myth that always bothers you?

Ashley Morris: 42:43

Probably opening up windows during tornadoes.

Kyle David: 42:47

Okay, I had somebody say heat lightning is not a thing, so the windows thing is, that's a fair one. That's a good one. Best piece of advice you've ever received?

Ashley Morris: 43:00

Be true to yourself.

Kyle David: 43:04

Good piece of advice there. Flash flood or drought? What is scarier?

Ashley Morris: 43:09

Flash flood.

Kyle David: 43:13

Do you have a favorite quote? It could be from a TV show or movie or a book.

Ashley Morris: 43:19

Oh man, yeah I do. I have one on my wall up here that I really like and it's not really a quote but it's more of a saying. It's not yet. But it's the no circled and basically the point of that is saying like always keep driving to what you want or trying to push for what's right and just because you get a no or a rejection doesn't necessarily mean it's a no for forever, it's just a not yet so maybe it's not going to happen now but it might happen in the future. So I really like that and I've got it on a sticky note because I like to be persistent. And I really think that persistence changes things for the better rather than just taking that no and sitting down and never pushing forward again.

Kyle David: 44:00

I think I'm going to have to put a post a note myself up that says that. That's a good quote. All right. Next one. Best season to study the weather. What's your favorite holiday?

Ashley Morris: 44:15

Favorite holiday I really like Halloween. I just, I really like fall. Like it's like the whole spirit, everything. I'm also a really big school fan. So I've got like a bunch of school stuff in my house. It's a little metal. But, I like that. And I like the colors, like orange, purple. Awesome. Ooh.

Kyle David: 44:36

Documentary, not movie. Yeah,

Ashley Morris: 44:39

let's do both.

Kyle David: 44:46

Favorite documentary and favorite movie.

Ashley Morris: 44:49

So, I have to give a shout out to Storm Chasers on Discovery Channel because I was a kid when it was out and my mom, because she knew I loved weather, anytime she saw it on TV, would turn it to it and then call my name and then I would run in and watch it. And that was it. It was like, ooh, tornadoes! So, definitely Discovery Channel back in the day. With Reed Timmer, of course. I'm trying to think of some other really good documentaries. There's a few I've seen. I think Nova did a couple, like on tornadoes and stuff that were great. I can't remember the title though. But then, in terms of movies, I personally really used to like Day After Tomorrow.

Kyle David: 45:30

Really? Okay.

Ashley Morris: 45:31

I remember it came out in theaters when I was in middle school, and I went with my grandpa and my mom, and I was just sitting there and I was like, This is it! I'm gonna study weather and the end of the world's gonna come and we're gonna fix it. It was just a very Passionate movie for me. I swear the theater got cold when everything froze over in New York too. I think they changed the thermostat or something.

Kyle David: 45:53

Was it one of those RTX theaters that throw stuff at you for when you're in a severe storm?

Ashley Morris: 45:58

It wasn't technically, but I felt like they were trying to do that, because I was like, why is it so cold in here now? Because it was during the summer too. That would be one of my favorite fictional movies. I can't say Twister because I know everybody likes Twister, but like, I historically have never liked Twister.

Kyle David: 46:14

Oh.

Ashley Morris: 46:15

So. But I have seen Twisters now so that was okay. It was a lot more scientifically accurate.

Kyle David: 46:22

I will say now understanding the meteorology and stuff and looking back at the movie I can, in the back of my mind there's like a voice that says, that's not right. That, that radar image isn't right. What they said is just baloney. But, most of me, because I watched that as a kid, with my mom, so, there's nostalgia, and then there's also like, there's parts that are not right, and I know this that's bothering me. So I understand what you mean.

Ashley Morris: 46:48

Yeah. But I thought Twisters was really cool, because like, my friend Rick Smith and all of them were in it, and like, there's so much of the science, and we did a talk at AMS on that, of how much work they did with SBC and all the meteorologists in Oklahoma. So that's cool. I'd like to see someone make an emergency manager movie like that. So we could get a little public face and some education. Maybe one day.

Kyle David: 47:11

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Ashley Morris: 47:17

Definitely somewhere warm and on a beach. I've learned, cause, again, I grew up in the desert, southwest. No, no beaches, no water, no storms, anything. I've done a lot of beach trips and stuff, and I love it. And then, also, being in Texas with warm winters, and then being in Maryland where It's a lot more temperate but also cold. I definitely don't want to go anywhere colder. So I would just say anywhere warm, close to a beach, or on the beach would be perfect for me. And I'm hoping to move back south sometime. Get back with the cool storms and the tanning and the heat and all of that. So, um, that would be my pick.

Kyle David: 48:00

All right. Maybe like Southeast United States can Fulfill all those needs? Check all those boxes off?

Ashley Morris: 48:07

Yeah, maybe so. I thought Myrtle Beach was nice, Carolinas, Florida's nice. I went to Orange Beach, Alabama for Christmas, which was so great. Very warm. And then Texas, too. I enjoy Texas.

Kyle David: 48:21

Those are all some good spots. All right, Ashley, that is our second fun game. And we've got one more towards the end of the podcast. But before we get to that point, let's get back into the conversation about you and all the work that you do with The Prince George's County Office of Emergency Management, and then also the Capitol's Emergency Management Response Team, and then the Maryland's response team. First off, how do you balance all of that work?

Ashley Morris: 48:47

So it's really challenging because in local level emergency management, like I said before, we're in charge of preparing, responding, recovering, and mitigating. So that's a lot of work to do, and every time we have storms or we have a threat, or we have a special event, we have to pause our day work and take that stuff on. So we are typically pretty swamped at work. The nice thing about my office outside of D. C. is that we actually have quite a bit of staffing. So we're pretty blessed to have around 15 emergency managers who help take on all of these actions. I've worked in other places, like in Texas and even up in Maryland, where we had one to two. So in terms of balancing, having the right staff. Staff support is really, really important in our field, and unfortunately, at the local level, we don't see that. Hopefully, we can start to build a little more staffing capabilities at local, but historically, we're just very busy. I took a state weather call today. I'm accustomed to having my email checked fairly every day, just in case there's risks and stuff like that. A little bit of it is just understanding that It's a community job, but it's also a job that you have to be on standby for. You have to be passionate about it, and you have to understand that emergencies aren't really scheduled. However, I don't think that's necessarily an excuse to not take care of yourself. I've been really busy before to where I've done IMT deployments with the Maryland team, and then I had a lot of stuff at work, and then we had storms, and I made the personal mistake of not taking care of myself. Not drinking enough water on deployment, skipping too many meals. Not processing some of the emotions with the type of deployment I was on. Um, when I got back, it really was like a significant emotional and physical crash. And honestly, I didn't really feel like I could get back to where I was for a couple weeks. So, to me, it is absolutely important that I make sure that I'm still keeping daily routines. Working out. eating healthy, drinking water, and even if I'm in the EOC or I'm working a storm, I still need to do that. Take 30 minutes off, have somebody cover what I'm doing, go call a friend, or go walk, or even just scroll on Instagram, take a break. Had something I had to learn the hard way because I was very passionate and go getter for a while, but It doesn't do you any good long term if you do that short term. So just figuring out how to balance everything, getting the rest when you can rest, and then hitting it hard when you know you have to hit it hard is the ultimate way to make sure to handle all the tasks you have in the EM world.

Kyle David: 51:22

Yeah, I'm just curious. Can you share a moment where covering the weather event and responding to a weather event was Emotional to you, and how did you feel during that time?

Ashley Morris: 51:32

Yeah, so I think Ultimately, I am extremely passionate about serving the public especially being in the public service It's our job to protect the people that are our taxpayers, to look out for them. And because I also really care about weather and reducing harm from it, it is central to everything I do. Um, so I've had a couple of different incidents where. We definitely forecasted it, we definitely communicated it well. Did we necessarily help as good as we could? No, and I wish that we could have definitely done a little better. I don't think any response is perfect, but I think we can always learn from that. And I think for me personally, and for any emergency manager or meteorologist who they might struggle with this as well, we can only do what we can do the best we can do it. Responses, forecasting, warning, all of that stuff, it's always a part of a intricate system. Not one of us has an ability to control all of it. And so I've really had to learn that myself because even if I was a director of emergency management or in charge of an emergency management office, I don't necessarily control that entire response. There are a lot of different variations, variables, things in play that are out of my control. And so, all I can do is do the best I can. Make sure that I'm implementing the science and doing what I can do. But it's definitely been a struggle sometimes because we can even communicate forecasting and get stuff out and it just isn't enough. We still have fatalities or we have people who lose homes or Something and you have to be able to take that on but not absorb it and move forward knowing that you're still helping those people.

Kyle David: 53:19

Yeah, it's a lot to process during those events and you're trying to help as many people out as you can to respond and Get back on their feet as well.

Ashley Morris: 53:29

Yeah. And it's hard because I just really want to help people. And even if we're perfect on everything, forecast, everything else, it's still not enough to necessarily save that house from that tree or save that, that instance from occurring or that fatality. And I remember even in graduate school, weather related fatalities really got to me emotionally. They fire me up. But they also make me really sad because I do feel like they're all preventable. They're all preventable to a degree if we can deal with figuring out a way to live with the weather in tandem. And it's not an easy thing, and there's no easy solution, there's a lot of variables, but I think it's preventable. And so every time that we have anything like that, it's so hard not to be really upset. But I'm glad that I do feel that way because I do feel like it makes sure that I am serving the public and you know that when I'm be doing emergency management or I'm working emergency management that you're going to get that passion from me. I am in your corner. I believe in doing the best we can and I'm never going to make an excuse that we can't reduce fatalities because I think that we can.

Kyle David: 54:37

Yeah, that's all. At the end of the day, that is the goal of every person who is trying to communicate about the weather. Helping those people out and getting them aware of what's going on and then responding to that as well. And we talked a little bit about your work engaging with the community in your emergency response role. Can you share a moment where that community engagement helped people out and dive a little more into what it takes to build up the trust through community engagement in your role?

Ashley Morris: 55:08

Yes, so I've done a lot of community engagement in EM. I think some of my love, at least when I was still doing weather, was a lot of the Weather Ready Nation, the Alley Skywarn, the weather outreach. Going into emergency management, I always wanted to do the outreach so I could teach people, turn around, don't drown, and all of those really cool weather things. So, I've had a lot of positions where I've done that, and what I've learned is, we really need to almost spend more time with our community, but it's more about them just knowing about us as an agency or us as a resource. Ultimately, many people know about FEMA or the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but they don't know about their county emergency managers who are there. Every day working to build capabilities, do things for them, provide resources. And we're always there. We're there for the small storm that we do a small little shelter, or we're there for the disaster scenario, the recovery. So I think our goal now, and what I've learned doing outreach is it's almost less important to do outreach, to teach them the safety stuff, and it's more important to do outreach just for them to know we exist as an agency. And the reason I say that is because our folks can't get our resources or can't find that information before, during, or after the disaster if they don't know we exist. And we've been dealing with this, I would say, for like multiple decades. So there's a huge amount of value of being out in the community. Saying, hey, did you know you have a local FEMA? You have county emergency managers here, your neighborhood emergency managers doing this every day. We don't just come in and do disaster when there's a disaster. We're working every day to build resiliency in this county. You can find our information on our website or follow us on social media. So it's almost like that handshake, that face to face, and that Just introduction of the agency that's important first. Then, once we do that, then we can get into the preparedness. These are the ways that you can be safe from the weather. You follow our Facebook, here's a graphic from the weather service about where to shelter. It's part of that trust process. And lastly, I think it's just so important, especially now for government, to really have a face. It's easy to have a logo, maybe it's a county seal or a state seal or whatever, and Have people not know that you really are a human, right? Government employee, human, service. It's important that our agencies have human beings attached to them with the public. So that they understand what we're doing, who we are, and that we're out there working for them. So I really advocate being out there and spending that time. And we're really lucky where I come from because we've got at least three to four staff that do a lot of outreach. And we're going out to different kinds of events around the county, at least weekly at this point.

Kyle David: 58:00

I'm just curious. What's the most unexpected thing that you've had to do in terms of engaging with the community that made you think, wait, we're doing this

Ashley Morris: 58:11

unexpected. I would say. I've had some very interesting infrastructure responses. One of them was in Texas, and it was actually a trailer park that had a sewage issue, and I was actually newer to EM, so I didn't really think about how, I mean, it was public healthy, and it made sense. We were going to have to displace some people. In terms of other things, we've really learned how to adapt to different county events and different County opportunities to educate. And so one of my favorite things that we currently do is we have a community engagement agency for the government that works on actually educating on all the County resources, which is cool. They do this senior like dance party thing with all these different senior centers. And I actually went one time and it's a part of this whole thing. So we go, I do like a 10 minute. disaster preparedness talk and I tell them what we do. I let them ask me questions about disasters and then they do jazzercise. So they have an instructor do some jazzercise and then I think they might even talk a little bit about like CPR or some other senior resources in the county. But it was just really funny because I was there shaking hands, meeting people and then they were dancing around. And it's just really cute because they're all older people. So that was another way that I was like, wow, I didn't really think that we would be doing outreach in this kind of mode, but it's always about going where the people are and what they're doing and trying to just figure out ways to just embed into those areas.

Kyle David: 59:46

Were you breaking some dance moves out with the elderly at your event?

Ashley Morris: 59:51

I did a little bit. I had to stand up and clap a little bit, but I was a little shy at the time. Maybe if I would have had a little more caffeine, I could have busted out some rhythms.

Kyle David: 1:00:02

I suck at dancing, so I would not have, no, no way I'm not doing that. But I want to segue actually to a comment you made earlier that your local emergency management office is like the local FEMA office. And many people, when they think of emergency management, they think of FEMA. How do you educate the people about the critical role of local and state emergency management? And also distinguish the difference between those offices in FEMA.

Ashley Morris: 1:00:34

Yes, usually when I'm doing training or even outreach or even on social media, I really like to emphasize that disasters start and end local. So, FEMA is a national response agency. They have a lot of resources, personnel, and disaster assistance programs for that. However, your county or your city emergency management Agency, personnel, whatever, um, is in charge of that. So if a disaster happens, they lead. They are deciding what needs to be done. They are mobilizing the stuff and they're working with the elected officials of that local government to run that disaster. Now, if the disaster is big enough and the city or the county doesn't have enough resources, then they turn to the state and they ask for support from the state. The state will send stuff or request stuff and send it down. The state does not take over though. It's still the local city county that's running that disaster and the state is supporting what the local wants. And then if the state is short on resources or it's really catastrophic, that's when you see FEMA get brought into the loop. And again, they are that third level of resource and asset. So you have your local running it, your state supporting it, and your federal also supporting. FEMA and the federal government does not ever come into a local government and run the disaster. That's our job. And so that's why it is so important to understand your local county and city emergency management office. Um, know who they are, where they're at, where you're going to get the information, sign up for their alerts, but more importantly, as citizens and as residents, know what your infrastructure is. Do you have a designated emergency manager or do you have 20? Are they funded with federal grants or are they funded with county dollars? All of those things are really important because depending on the size, strength, and output of that local emergency management program, it could very well directly relate to how well that disaster is going to end up in that jurisdiction. If those programs are too small, not funded, or not supported, think about it, your local still leading. So with the state and the federal coming in and you don't have that infrastructure at the local level, it's going to be messy at best. And we really want to see more residents and more general public people advocating for stronger local level emergency management programs and funding. So we can really take care of the disaster risk, conduct mitigation, and do everything on the local level.

Kyle David: 1:03:06

Absolutely. And continuing about the discussion, the distinction between local, state, and national emergency management, you are not only the Division Manager for Preparedness and Outreach at the Prince George's County Office of Emergency Management, but you're also an active member of the D. C. Incident Management Team and then also the Maryland Incident Management Team. What's been The most rewarding and the most challenging thing and working in three different levels of emergency management.

Ashley Morris: 1:03:37

Yeah, so I think it's important to hint too on incident management teams and IMTs and how they really bring benefit local, state, and even nationally. So, incident management team or IMT are basically these teams that are specialized trained to do incident management. Usually at that incident commander level or that organization level. level. Our goal is to build these teams to where we can help either locally, so if our county has a disaster, or regionally, if somewhere in D. C. or somewhere in Maryland has a disaster, Or, even like this Kentucky flooding, or some of the tornadoes that happened, our team can deploy to help those states. And the value of taking people and specializing, training them in deploying is helpful not only locally, but also on a state level and a federal level. If you were to have a disaster, and of course, as a local, maybe you don't have a special IMT, or you don't have a lot of staff, maybe you're really rural, you'd be able to request from your state. To request one of these IMTs, these incident management teams, and then they would send out an emac request to all 50 states saying, Hey, we would like one of these incident management deployment teams to come in and help us manage this. It's too big. We need experts out here, or we just need people to oversee this and then. Depending on your availability, you'd be able to deploy and do that. So, for me, it is a lot, and it's definitely a challenge because when we have weather or when we have incidents, I have two hats. I have my Prince George's County Local Emergency Management hat, and then I have my Incident Management hat. And there have been times, even when I was working in Baltimore County, where the special event or the incident involved Baltimore County. So, am I going to be the Baltimore County Emergency Manager or am I going to deploy and work as a part of the Incident Management Team and be more of the IMT, not the county? And it can get confusing if you don't define that. So there's definitely a little bit of prioritization that comes there, but it's really great to be able to build those and help other places. Not only because we want to use our skills, but most importantly, many of us in EM don't get disasters every year. So, we need to deploy and practice and see disasters other places if we're going to really have a chance to handle the big one in our jurisdiction in 10 years, 20 years, 5 years.

Kyle David: 1:06:06

That's a lot of different hats to wear. And on the note of being deployed, can you share a moment where you were deployed to respond to something outside of your area?

Ashley Morris: 1:06:16

Yeah, so I've only done in state deployment so far. We have our team in for a Tennessee deployment for the flood. Just came out yesterday. We'll see if we get it, but it does get competitive in terms of what teams get picked. travel distance, and then also pay and reimbursement. Some of my biggest deployments, I've done two line of duty deaths where we supported the fire department with their planning after they lost a firefighter. Those, it's very intricate because it's almost like special event incident management, but there's so many moving parts in terms of all the apparatus and the fire trucks and just the mutual aid and the ceremonial stuff and it's very heavy. Even just coming in from the outside to work one of those, it's heavy. So I've done several of those in Maryland. And then I've also done a couple just overall, like, special event marathon planning. But yeah, we haven't had a lot of big disasters here locally. And I just got on the IMT for NCR last year. So I'm really trying to qualify so I can go out of state. That's my biggest goal. I will say our NCR IMT did deploy to DCA when we just had the DCA air crash, but because I'm a trainee, I was not on the list yet, but I had colleagues that went, so I'm excited to hear more about their lessons learned with that.

Kyle David: 1:07:40

And DCA is Reagan International?

Ashley Morris: 1:07:43

Yes.

Kyle David: 1:07:45

Okay.

Ashley Morris: 1:07:45

I always get confused for a minute because it's D, and you know the other one's Dulles.

Kyle David: 1:07:51

Gotcha. But going back to what you said earlier about you're wearing two hats, you're actually also wearing a third, and we alluded to this in the introduction. You're also working on a doctorate in emergency management with, first off, kudos to you for being able to wear so many different hats and do so many different things. What's been the most interesting thing that you've done with that doctorate so far, and what are you looking forward to researching further?

Ashley Morris: 1:08:15

So, I started last fall, so this is actually my fourth full semester, and I will say I have been somewhat crazy because I've taken three classes every semester, and I've been technically full time, and also worked. So, I'm hanging in there just trying to get my coursework done. After this semester, I'll only have, like, two more classes to do, so I'm going to be completely done with all my emergency management coursework with my PhD, and then I'll take my COP exam next spring. And then I'll work on dissertation after that. Obviously the COP exam is written in oral, and you have to pass that to be the next level, or a PhD candidate. But I am excited to start getting into my dissertation. And I had an ability to meet with my dissertation committee a couple weeks ago to start finally talking about it, now that I've been in it for a while. And I'm really excited because I plan to use my dissertation as a way to study weather literacy and emergency management. So, What is the level or the baseline level of weather and meteorology understanding in local and state emergency managers and where are the holes? What do they understand in general consistently? What do they not understand? And then I also want to take a look at training. Have they taken certain weather related FEMA training? Have they not? Are there areas where they're all really weak at that we don't have training? Can we develop some training at the federal level that would help everyone? Um, kind of those things. So I'm really excited because like you mentioned, I've always been trying to introduce weather to EM and EM to weather. And I feel like this dissertation is like the perfect marriage of that concept. And I'm hoping that it will also roll into some future projects of training that we can do for the field.

Kyle David: 1:10:03

And on that note of future trainings, what specific areas do you believe need the most attention right now? How do you think investment in those areas would improve overall disaster response and emergency management?

Ashley Morris: 1:10:15

Oh, I think, honestly, we really just need some kind of training standard that requires any training. To me It's somewhat upsetting as a professional to know that if I wanted to be an EM, and let's say I got hired to be one, there's nothing from start of career to end of career saying I have to take anything. I don't have to take damage assessment training, I don't have to take incident management training, I don't have to take mass care sheltering training, I don't have to take evacuation training, I don't have to take anything about meteorology. I don't have to understand any like, there's no requirement at all, and I would say the only thing that kind of even looks like a little bit of a requirement would be the adoption of NIMS ICS, where it's the Instant Command System, so we might have to take ICS classes because we've adopted it. But even that's hit and miss in terms of if people actually do it. So From my perspective, we have nothing, and what I would like to see is just a baseline. Why don't we require that professionals take basic emergency planning, basic emergency exercise, uh, some basic weather classes, which is where my dissertation's gonna hint at, probably, basic disaster response, honestly, alert systems. we continue to see issues with IPAWS and wording and alerting. So there needs to be some kind of required alert system training for emergency managers. Reimbursement, basic disaster response, documentation. And my theory too is I feel like if we actually set these standards and everybody knew what we need to know, From coast to coast, I think we would save a lot of federal money, and I think that we would also save a lot of lives. Because not having this training allows you to not necessarily be prepared or do the right actions that you need to take during the disaster, and then you end up having to Suffer from that during your response, so either you're not gonna be making the right decisions. You're gonna lose lives You're not gonna recover as fast your economics are gonna take a hit And then you're gonna have to overly rely on bringing state and federal in and then even though you're supposed to lead They're gonna have to step in a little bit to lead a little more, right? I would just like to see any kind of foundational baseline in Foundations and fundamental emergency management.

Kyle David: 1:12:33

Yeah, and the implications is that it's not only saving money, but it's also saving lives as well.

Ashley Morris: 1:12:39

Absolutely, and to me, I don't know how many people actually know that, but like, we have a lot of emergency managers on the coasts that have to help with surge mapping or evacuation decisions. Help offer some kind of guidance, listen to NWS on that, but also communicate that to their local official who makes the call. And it's scary that we don't have training in that. Some people might not have any training, they're just guessing. I'm not really a big fan of doing disaster management or preparedness or anything without data, and I'm not a big fan on doing life threatening decisions without Training on it and some kind of data with that. So I really hope we're going to keep pushing for training standards. And I think that right now is the best time to do it.

Kyle David: 1:13:26

Absolutely. And things are like in terms of like technology, things are coming out and that's making things easier and cheaper. And maybe those things will trickle down to the emergency management world as well.

Ashley Morris: 1:13:39

I'm hoping, and I just, I really just want to see us just really start to think how we can revolutionize response. And more specifically, the training's important, but the technology, and the data. Back in the day, I'm sure it was custom for us to guess, point, estimate this half of the town should evacuate, but we don't have to do that anymore. We've got GIS, we've got satellite, we've got all sorts of different stuff that we could be using. And also scientific partners. We've got universities, we've got academia. The collaboration we could be doing is endless. So I'm really just hoping that as we assess and re evaluate our field, that we'll take a look at how we've been doing it, and how maybe we can revolutionize some of these new technologies and new data to just enhance what we've been doing too.

Kyle David: 1:14:31

And on that note, what's the most exciting thing that you see starting to come on the horizon in terms of collaboration, technology, anything new that's coming out that's starting to become a little more of a thing now?

Ashley Morris: 1:14:45

I think for me, and I know some people will really roll their eyes about this, but I'm going to throw out AI. And the reason I'm going to say AI is because I think if we develop it right, there are certain things and disasters that AI would really help with. For instance, if we could develop like a chat system that's AI based, where people can put in their need, I need food, I need water, I need recovery support, and it will point them to exactly what they need and where to get it. That would be really helpful. And honestly, it would replace our 311 systems, our call centers. All of these methods of trying to get that information to people, we could solve that with that. And it would reduce staffing with that, but also plans and technology. So that's one thing. And then, just taking a look, too, at the use of that with other systems. Like, I'm not an expert on tech, so I'm not going to say I know AI solutions, but if you could figure out an AI way to enhance alert and warning. Because again, it's a technology that we're not very good at. So, maybe we could think of some kind of solutions with that. I like to say dispatch too. 9 1 1 centers, we actually have a hiring crisis around the country with dispatch. A lot of different dispatch places do not have enough staffing. They're running 60 percent capacity, 70 percent. Is there a way that we could design AI to help assist 9 1 1? What do you need a human for? What do you not? Or, what can you solve with AI and then have a human kind of go through it and correct it or whatever? To me, it's endless, and I think that if we continue to work with technology, there might be some ways in public safety that we can solve it. I'm interested to see how it goes. I also am a little scared of it. Uh, especially some of the image stuff, but I guess we'll see where our society goes with it.

Kyle David: 1:16:36

There's a lot of things that scare me and other people that I've had on about AI, and not just with weather forecasting, but as you said, with images, with being able to replicate things, do things at such a fast pace. It's exciting, but also scary at the same time. But I want to segue a little bit into Your transition from meteorology to emergency management because we talked about this a little bit earlier Not a lot of people are STEM people in the emergency management role and I'm curious How do you see that evolving and how do you see more STEM people getting into emergency management in the next? Five maybe ten years, especially at the local level

Ashley Morris: 1:17:19

Yeah, so we've already seen quite a bit of uptick in my opinion over the past five years, even eight years since I started, of people who are coming from earth sciences, GIS, even computers, because now cyber security is a huge thing, even on the EM side with the growth. So we're starting to see a lot more hires come from that, even on the local level. And on the local level, mostly they're being hired as like emergency planners. Hazard mitigation specialists, threat assessments. And then on the state level, you're seeing like state meteorologist positions open up, you're seeing state risk analysis positions open up. And these are all really cool positions because it allows them to use data, natural hazards, and their background to apply it to emergency planning, preparedness, response, and be that subject matter expert. And we're very used to having partners in that, just like we work with National Weather Service, we work with USGS, we work with all sorts of different scientists. But having someone actually in the field being one of you and actually contributing to your stuff is more valuable because they are literally embedding. Their education and their understanding into the concepts of what you're doing. And I think that's so much better than just asking an SME, Hey, what do you think? And then trying to apply it yourself. I've seen a lot of growth on the local level. I think we'll continue to see that. I'm really excited to continue to push for that because like I said before, We just don't implement technology successful enough in EM yet. Even like with the AI, like, I'm sure we're not even close to doing anything with that. We're just slow at that. We're not super good at putting in data analysis or the use of data for decisions. We're behind in technology and we don't use STEM like we could. So I really want to see more people come in and push for those changes. Because we really might be able to revolutionize how we're responding and how we're mitigating typical issues with disasters from the government level.

Kyle David: 1:19:20

And on that note, for anybody in the STEM field who wants to start getting into emergency management, what unique perspectives or skills should they go and look for when seeking to enter emergency management?

Ashley Morris: 1:19:35

Yeah, so I definitely think just having a basic understanding of natural hazards, weather, geology, geophysics, but also understanding some other hazards. Cyber awareness, cybersecurity, biohazards. Terrorism, Homeland Security, active shooter, transportation systems, all of those things. Knowing the hazards associated with that, the ways to mitigate that, any classes you can take in that, awesome. And personally, I do think that it makes you a stronger emergency manager if you understand how the hazard works. For instance, with meteorologists, I think you're stronger at EM when you understand what kind of ingredients are required and how the storm forms and how it rolls out and what the threats are. Because if you can understand the full picture, then you'll better understand how to prevent it or prepare for it or mitigate it instead of just knowing the outcome. So I would say any classes like that, anything in GIS is super, super popular. And I'll say when I first got in, I actually got hired because of that. I had a lot of GIS with my masters and we're always looking for mapping and stuff like that, especially for disaster response. Computer science, very valuable. Honestly, anything that allows you to apply data, data driven stuff. Maybe a little coding, you don't need to have coding, but like for certain things. There's not a lot of people in emergency management who do any coding. And so if you have ways to process data, make dashboards, like that's all pretty valuable that nobody really has. And it would make you really stand out. Other than that. I will say, having a little bit of a background in public safety is really important. I did not have that, and it really took me a while to learn fire systems, police systems, dispatch systems, and all of that. So I encourage people to get familiar with public safety, do some tours, think about volunteering at a local fire department. Even if you're just taking a tour, you don't have to be a firefighter. And just really understanding the system and how government works. Because lastly, public administration, if you're going to be on the government side, is really important to understand. How do county policies get processed? How do government agencies work? You can't really do EM without understanding the system. So I would say public administration is helpful also.

Kyle David: 1:21:56

A lot of good nuggets of wisdom for people wanting to go from STEM and use their STEM skills, knowledge, expertise in the emergency management role. Are there any things that, as we wrap up here, that, any misconceptions from the public that you want to bust? Any advice that you want to give to anybody in general looking to get into meteorology emergency management? Or any final parting words that you would like to leave, or anything that we missed during our conversation that you'd like to talk for a second about?

Ashley Morris: 1:22:27

I think really what I want people to know, and it doesn't even matter if it's meteorologists, emergency managers, or even just general public, I want people to know how the disaster system works. So, going back to that discussion with local, like it's really important to be engaged in your local government. Understand your local systems, your local agencies, your local resources, more than just emergency management, but for public safety. What's your fire department look like? What's your police department look like? What are you voting for? Where do your taxes go? All of those things are really important locally. And with many things, and even like with elections and things like that, there's always an emphasis on national over local. Um, local is your neighborhood. So keep in mind that your local emergency management, just like we talked about, they're working for you every day. They're working to build local emergency response plans. They're working to build local capabilities. They're going to be the ones setting up the shelters during your disaster. They're also pre planning them with churches, with schools. They're going to be the ones doing food and water distribution or coordinating non profits to come in and help with that. They're also going to be the ones sending your alerts. So it's really important to understand what does that look like for you. Do you have a really strong emergency management office protecting your home, your school, your city? Do you not have an emergency management office? Do you have one staff? Do you have 20? Just do some research on that. And if you can, definitely advocate for it. I think everybody understands the importance of disaster prevention or mitigation, stopping floods from happening, stopping hurricane damage, building better codes. All of that stuff's done local. So if you don't have staff in your government at a local level to apply for federal grants, do the federal projects, and actually do the project in your city, it's not going to get done. The state doesn't do that and the feds don't do that unless it's state property or federal property. And so the ultimate change in terms of disaster prevention or even, um, disaster resilience is really all about our local communities and our local government. So please, Take a look at your local emergency management office, get to know them, and definitely advocate for them, because we've got a lot of hazards and disasters going on, and we definitely need it, so.

Kyle David: 1:24:46

Local matters, everyone. Definitely. Alright, Ashley, that is the last question, but we have one more final fun game for you before you go, and that is whether or not we've got some weather themed and non weather themed trivia questions. And with that said, are you ready? I'm ready. All right. This is whether or not your question is related to the Phoenix Suns. Which Hall of Famer won an NBA MVP award while playing for the Phoenix Suns? Is it A. Kevin Johnson? B. Amare Stroudmoyer? Stoudemire.

Ashley Morris: 1:25:24

Stoudemire.

Kyle David: 1:25:26

Amari Stoudemire. C. Charles Barkley. Or D. Sean Marion.

Ashley Morris: 1:25:33

Oh man, I'm gonna say Barkley.

Kyle David: 1:25:38

Barkley final guess?

Ashley Morris: 1:25:39

Oh man, yeah.

Kyle David: 1:25:41

You are correct, it is Charles Barkley. Yeah. This is whether or not your next question is related to monsoon storms. How much do monsoon storms account for rainfall in the southwest United States? Is it A, 10 to 20 percent, B, 30 to 40 percent, C, 40 to 50 percent, or D, more than 50 percent? D, more than 50%? Yeah. You are correct. It is more than 50 percent of the precipitation rainfall for the southwest United States. Big, big time influencer for rain out there.

Ashley Morris: 1:26:23

Oh, yeah. I mean, if you didn't have storms during monsoon, you didn't have storms. Besides winter, we did have some winter storms and stuff like that.

Kyle David: 1:26:34

Oh, okay. Interesting. Alright. This is whether or not your next question is related to Bravo Housewives. Which Real Housewife earned the nickname of The Countess? Is it A. Bethany Frankel, B. Ramona Singer, C. Jill Zarin, or D. Luann de Lessepes?

Ashley Morris: 1:26:56

No, it's Dee Luen.

Kyle David: 1:26:59

I was watching

Ashley Morris: 1:26:59

that yesterday. You must have been, uh, spying on me. I love that New York. The old school New York with Bethany Frankel is the best.

Kyle David: 1:27:06

I don't have any interest in the housewives, but you are correct. It is Luann de Lesseps. Lesseps?

Ashley Morris: 1:27:14

I don't even know, Luann.

Kyle David: 1:27:17

Wow, that's coincidental that it happened to be the show that you were watching before this recording.

Ashley Morris: 1:27:23

That's hilarious.

Kyle David: 1:27:25

Gotta love that. Alright, this is whether or not your next question is related to tornadoes. Which one of these tornado outbreaks is the largest tornado outbreak? Ever recorded? Is it A, the 1974 Super Outbreak B, the 2011 Super Outbreak C. The March 31st to April 1st, 2023 Outbreak or D, the 1981 United Kingdom Outbreak.

Ashley Morris: 1:27:52

Oh man. I've never even heard of the United Kingdom outbreak. Is that real or did you make that up?

Kyle David: 1:27:59

I'll tell you, it is a real tornado outbreak that has occurred.

Ashley Morris: 1:28:02

That is interesting.

Kyle David: 1:28:04

So all these are real tornado outbreaks that have occurred.

Ashley Morris: 1:28:06

So, obviously, I am split between 11 and 70, was it 4? 74. I'll just go with 11.

Kyle David: 1:28:15

2011 is final guess? Yeah. You are correct. It is the 2011 Super Outbreak. The second up was the 1974 Super Outbreak. The March 31st to April 1st, I believe, is the 5th largest. And then the United Kingdom squeaks in, like, I think at number 6 or something like that. I'm

Ashley Morris: 1:28:36

gonna have to look that up. I really have never heard of that. That sounds crazy.

Kyle David: 1:28:39

I mean, I knew they were known for tornadoes, but I didn't know that they had their own outbreak that was on the record books. Yeah. So both of us are going to have to do a little deep dive on that one. All right. This is whether or not your last question is related to both the San Jose Sharks and the Washington Capitals. Which of these players have played for both the Washington Capitals and the San Jose Sharks? Is it A. Brendan Dillon? B. Alexander Ovechkin? C. Mike Gartner, or D. Evander Cain. I can give you a hint if you would like.

Ashley Morris: 1:29:22

Yeah, give me a hint.

Kyle David: 1:29:24

The correct answer, for the player who's played for both teams, now currently plays for the New Jersey Devils.

Ashley Morris: 1:29:32

Ugh.

Kyle David: 1:29:33

As a defensive player.

Ashley Morris: 1:29:36

Is it Cain?

Kyle David: 1:29:38

Final guess is Cain?

Ashley Morris: 1:29:39

Yeah.

Kyle David: 1:29:40

You are incorrect, sadly. It was Brendan Dillon who had played for the Washington Capitals and the San Jose Sharks. And he is now with the New Jersey Devils. That is the last Whether or Not Trivia Question and the end of the episode. But before we go, how can people stay in touch with all the awesome work that you're doing, Ashley?

Ashley Morris: 1:30:01

Yeah, so I'm on multiple different platforms. If you want to find me on LinkedIn, it's going to be Ashley Morris. Just my name fairly responsive. They're still on X. So at miss ashes, 92, also on blue sky under the same, it's just the blue sky at miss ashes, 92. And I also have a professional Instagram I'm trying to work on. It's just Ashley Morris. Feel free to find me there and love to connect and talk more about meteorology and emergency management.

Kyle David: 1:30:28

Let's build up that professional Instagram. Everybody listening, go follow that Instagram and we'll make sure to list all of those platforms in the show notes for everybody to go and check out. With that said, thank you so much, Ashley, for coming onto the podcast and thank you to the listener for listening to the Everything Weather podcast and we'll catch you on the next episode.