FEMA's NIMS/ICS assumes continental mass-casualty conditions: mutual aid, redundant infrastructure, and reachable resupply within 72 hours. The Lahaina wildfire — 100 deaths, $5.5 billion in damages — documented what happens when this framework is applied to island environments. This paper provides the island-specific alternative.
Abstract
Practitioner-led island emergency management framework documenting four structural failures in the Lahaina wildfire response and providing an alternative framework replacing continental FEMA assumptions with island-reality design. All ISPI research is free under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
Key Findings
Warning system architecture designed for continental tsunami response failed catastrophically when applied to island wildfire under high-wind drought conditions in Lahaina
Single-road evacuation routes on Maui trapped residents — a constraint with no analog in continental emergency planning
The 72-hour self-sufficiency standard is structurally inadequate for island communities where maritime resupply is weather-dependent — a 30-day reserve standard is documented
Summary of the paper
"Island Emergency Management Framework" asks whether NIMS, EMAC and ISO 22301 work as designed in island and geographically isolated communities, and proposes an island-specific framework built on five first principles.
It reviews the post-incident record of three events: the 2023 Lahaina wildfire, Hurricane Maria in 2017, and Cyclone Ditwah in Sri Lanka in 2025, using sources including the Attorney General's independent review and the World Bank's damage assessment.
What the paper finds
- Three design points fail in island settings: scalable mutual aid, geographic supply chain redundancy, and infrastructure resilience.
- Similar patterns across three events, in ISPI's analysis, despite different jurisdictions and frameworks.
- The 72-hour standard is too short for islands, ISPI argues. The report recommends a 30-day community reserve standard as its own policy proposal.
What it recommends
- FEMA: reform compliance requirements for island and non-contiguous communities.
- Hawaii Legislature: set 30-day community reserve standards for all counties.
- HIEMA: establish a formal inter-island mutual aid framework with pre-staged resources.
- Counties: implement multi-hazard mass notification with redundant, independent channels.
Who it's for
Emergency managers, FEMA and HIEMA staff, county officials, legislators, and community resilience organizations.
Biketawa Declaration invocation (May 8, 2026) for Pacific energy supply chain crisis validates this framework's supply chain singularity thesis at regional scale — 18 Pacific nations simultaneously affected by the same single-point supply vulnerability.
Cite as
Pulley, Warren (2026). Island Emergency Management Framework: Replacing Continental Assumptions With Island-Reality Design Across Five First Principles (ISPI WP-03). Island Security Policy Institute, Honolulu. https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/wp03-island-emergency-management https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23450051
BibTeX
@techreport{ispiwp032026,
author = {Pulley, Warren},
title = {Island Emergency Management Framework: Replacing Continental Assumptions With Island-Reality Design Across Five First Principles},
institution = {Island Security Policy Institute},
address = {Honolulu, HI},
number = {ISPI WP-03},
year = {2026},
url = {https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/wp03-island-emergency-management},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23450051}
}Related Research
HI-04 — Maui Recovery and Reform →WP-06 — Supply Chain Security →Post-Lahaina Duty of Care →Related analysis
AnalysisWhy Emergency Management Frameworks Fail Island Communities Worldwide →AnalysisSri Lanka's Cyclone Ditwah and the Island Emergency Management Gap →AnalysisFEMA ICS and NIMS Certified — And Why That Training Revealed the Framework's Island Gaps →PaperWP-02 — Insider Threat Assessment Framework for Island Organizations →PaperWP-04 — Campus Safety for Geographically Isolated Institutions →GuideIsland Emergency Management & Preparedness: Research and FAQ →Pulley, Warren. "Island Emergency Management: A Practitioner Framework." Island Security Policy Institute, 2026. https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/wp03-island-emergency-management
