Officially Released - July 16, 2024
Shaking in the Forest: Finding Light in the Darkness
SHAKING IN THE FOREST opens with a plane crash and ends with a life-threatening illness. At the age of twenty-five, Lori Hodges chose to make a career out of helping people during the worst days of their lives. She has spent the last thirty years in emergency services – first as a firefighter and paramedic and later as an emergency manager, helping to coordinate the response and recovery to disasters. It is through this work that she has come to see the beauty in tragedy.
The most difficult times often teach us the greatest lessons, and our connections to others give us the power to face the unknown. It is through these relationships—whether brief or long-lasting—that we are able to step forward confidently into a new day. Bridging the lessons Lori learned as a paramedic with her own personal trauma, Shaking in the Forest brings light to the darkness, helping each of us find a way to thrive, even on our toughest days.
Now available at major bookstores.
CHDS Article on Shaking in the Forest
Welcome to my portfolio
The Center for Homeland Defense and Security just posted an article on my new book, Shaking in the Forest, coming out in July. I was privileged to attend the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security programs over several years and graduated from the program with a Master's Degree in Defense Studies. My time at CHDS shaped both my work and how I look at life, which is illustrated in this new book.
Click on the image to view the article.
Published Works
Sweet Twisted Pine
MY FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK
Sweet Twisted Pine is a historical fiction novel set in the late 1800s that follows the timeline of her ancestors as they traveled west and began ranching in Colorado and Wyoming.
Available for purchase:
Beauty of Chaos
GovCIO Outlook Magazine, April 2022
The article takes a look at emergency management systems from a complex adaptive systems perspective, and outlines ways in which emergency managers can change program management to meet the challenges of today and the future.
https://evidence-management.govciooutlook.com/cxoinsights/the-beauty-of-chaos-nid-1635.html
Emergency Management as a Complex System
Journal of Business Continuity and Emergency Planning, May 2021
This paper explores the application of insights from the study of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) to emergency management in search of an adaptive approach to hazard management capable of functioning with increased effectiveness in dynamic, uncertain and unclear environments. To function successfully as a CAS, emergency management must move past its current linear hazard-based approach to a hazard-agnostic consequence-based systems approach.
Designing for Disruption
FEATURE ARTICLE
GovCIO Outlook, Sept 2023
This article describes actions that can be taken to move emergency management and government operations from old models to those that are needed for our future challenges.
https://disaster-management.govciooutlook.com/cxoinsights/designing-for-disruption-nid-2002.html
Systems Fragility: The Sociology of Chaos
Journal of Emergency Management, August 2016
This article examines community fragility in emergency management from a systems perspective. Using literature that addresses fragility in four areas of complex systems, including ecosystems, social systems, sociotechnical systems, and complex adaptive systems, a theoretical framework focused on the emergency management field is created. These findings illustrate how community fragility factors can be used to not only improve overall outcomes after disaster but also build less fragile systems and communities in preparation for future disasters.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27438960/
Systems Fragility: The Sociology of Chaos
MASTER'S THESIS
Naval Postgraduate School, Center for Homeland Defense and Security
This thesis seeks to examine the concept of community fragility in emergency management from a systems perspective. Two questions are studied. The first is whether community fragility can be qualitatively measured and the second is whether this concept has value in the emergency management field. Research for this paper includes relevant literature in four areas of complex systems, including ecosystems, social systems, socio-technical systems and complex adaptive systems. The output of this study of relevant literature is used to create a theoretical framework based upon the areas of fragility found in each system and its relevance to the emergency management field. This theoretical framework is assessed through a multi-case analysis, examining three diverse large-scale events that have occurred in the United States in the past decade. Each fragility factor from the theoretical framework is assessed for each case study to determine if the framework is sound. The findings allow for the development of a causal prediction model illustrating how community fragility factors can be used in the emergency management field to not only improve overall outcomes after disaster, but to also build stronger systems for future disasters.
https://www.hsaj.org/articles/4768