But We Had A Plan | A Disaster Nomad Podcast

Disaster Nomad
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The hazard was mapped, the risks were assessed, the plan was approved, and then reality showed up. But We Had A Plan is a podcast about disasters, risk, resilience, and the wonderfully unpredictable variables that determine what happens when things don't quite go to plan. Hosted by Professional Disaster Manager and Disaster Nomad founder Jess van Schalkwyk, expect conversations with experts, practitioners and fascinating humans about the incidents, ideas, lessons and occasional curveballs that might help us do things better next time. Sometimes technical. Sometimes uncomfortable. Occasionally unhinged. Always curious. Because having a plan is one thing, but finding out whether it survives contact with reality is another.

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    Ep 07: And then what? The hidden dependencies that make disasters cascade

    It's 7:30 in the morning. The power is out, two managers can't get to work, the supplier has stopped deliveries, and nobody can find the latest version of the emergency plan.  So what broke first? And what broke because of it?  In this episode of But We Had A Plan, Jess looks at the hidden dependencies that turn a manageable disruption into a much bigger problem. The generator that needs diesel. The diesel that needs a road. The backup communications that run on the same mobile network. And the one person who somehow knows how the whole system works.  Using the 2022 KwaZulu-Natal floods and Winter Storm Uri in Texas, the episode traces how failures cascade across transport, power, communications and staffing, often when the original hazard never reaches your front door.  Jess also shares five questions you can ask this week about one critical function in your organisation:  What do we absolutely have to keep doing? What does that depend on? Which dependency is likely to fail first? What is our alternative? Have we actually tested it? Most of the time, resilience isn't about creating a world where nothing ever breaks. Things will break. The real question is whether one failure has to take everything else down with it. And the most useful preparedness question is also the most irritating one: “And then what?”

  2. Oct 29

    Ep 06: George Building Collapse - You can't surge trust

    On 6 May 2024, a five-storey building under construction collapsed in George, Western Cape. This triggered a complex multi-agency response involving emergency services, disaster managers, government, technical specialists, volunteers and the local community. In this episode of But We Had A Plan, Jess sits down with Lavenia Nicholson, former Deputy Director at the Western Cape Provincial Disaster Management Centre, former UNDAC member, and founder of ADAM: Advanced Disaster And Mitigation Solutions, to unpack what that response revealed about one of the most important and often overlooked parts of disaster management: relationships. Using the George building collapse as a real-world lens, Jess and Lavenia explore what effective coordination actually looks like when plans meet reality. They talk about why trust built before an emergency can make the difference between friction and function, why a beautifully written plan is useless if nobody understands or owns their role in it, and why exercises need to test more than procedures; they need to test people, relationships and decision-making under pressure. The conversation also looks at consultation, leadership, ego, institutional culture, informal networks, and why the person with the most useful piece of information is not always the most senior person in the room. Because when a crisis happens, nobody is running around with a 300-page disaster plan under their arm - they are calling people they know. You may be able to surge resources, but you definitely can’t surge trust.

  3. Oct 16

    Ep 05: The key to localisation - Just shut up and listen

    What if one of the most important skills in disaster management is knowing when not to be the loudest voice in the room? In this solo episode of But We Had A Plan, Jess digs into localisation, co-creation, and the uncomfortable question beneath both: Who actually gets to decide? Drawing on lessons from humanitarian response and disaster management, Jess explores why the people closest to risk are often also closest to the solutions, and why communities are still too often consulted only after programmes, priorities and definitions of success have already been decided. From ants predicting drought to funding flows, local leadership, indigenous knowledge and community-led resilience, the episode asks what meaningful localisation really requires of humanitarian and international actors. It also looks at why localisation remains difficult nearly a decade after the Grand Bargain, including questions of funding, risk, short project cycles, whose expertise we value, and whether organisations are genuinely willing to share power.  Because co-creation is not asking communities to validate a solution we already designed, and localisation is not giving people more responsibility while keeping the money, authority and decisions somewhere else. Sometimes building better resilience starts with something much simpler: Just shut up…and listen.

  4. Oct 7

    Ep 04: Making bad days smaller

    What if the real measure of good disaster management isn’t how well we respond to catastrophe, but how much catastrophe we prevent in the first place? In this episode of But We Had A Plan, Jess sits down with Drew from Logista Response for a wide-ranging conversation about disaster logistics, preparedness, prevention and what it really means to make bad days smaller. A major focus of the discussion is the logistics behind response: getting the right people, resources and information to the right place at the right time. Jess and Drew unpack why even well-resourced systems can struggle when responders do not know what is available, where it is, how quickly it is being used, or which site needs it most. They also explore what happens when disaster teams are expected to adapt tools and processes that were never designed for the complexity of emergency operations. They also tackle one of disaster management’s most persistent myths: the idea of the “natural disaster”. Hazards may be natural, but the scale of the disaster is shaped by what we build, what we protect, what we invest in, and the trade-offs we are willing to make before the hazard arrives. Because sometimes the best disaster response is not the fastest one, but rather the one that means the bad day never becomes quite as bad as it could have been. A quick production note: Jess’s microphone decided to have a few technical opinions of its own during this recording. You may notice a little unevenness in places, but the conversation was far too good not to share, so we hope you’ll stick with us.

  5. Sep 28

    Ep 03: There's an app for that...right?

    Technology can make us faster, more connected, and better informed, but can it actually improve resilience? In this episode of But We Had A Plan, Jess sits down with Dimitri Syrris, founder of Baotree, to talk about why organisations still rely on paper forms and spreadsheets, what happens when communities can generate and own their own risk data, and the gap between having information and using it well. Jess and Dimitri unpack real-world examples from conservation, to tourism, to community risk reduction projects. They explore why resistance to change is often more human than technical, what good data can reveal, and where AI can genuinely strengthen our approaches without removing the people, judgement, and stories that matter most. Because yes, there probably is an app for it, but the better question is: What happens when humans actually use data well?

  6. Sep 16

    Ep 02: No straight lines, just puzzle pieces

    Careers in disaster management rarely follow a straight line. More often, they look like a collection of seemingly unrelated pieces; a degree here, a deployment there, a skill picked up unexpectedly, a role that wasn’t part of the original plan, until eventually, the picture starts to make sense. In Episode 2 of But We Had A Plan, Natalie Fairchild from Crisis DNA joins us to talk about how people find their way into this field, the many different routes in, the skills that matter, the detours that shape us, and why there is no single blueprint for building a life in disaster management. It’s a conversation for anyone already working in the sector, trying to break into it, or simply wondering where their own piece might fit. Sometimes the path only makes sense when you look back at the whole puzzle.

  7. Sep 16

    Ep 01: Resilience has lost its meaning

    We talk about resilience all the time, but do we actually know what it means? In the first episode of But We Had A Plan, Jess van Schalkwyk talks through the heart behind starting this podcast and takes a closer look at one of disaster management's favourite words: Resilience. Drawing on more than a decade of experience across disaster management and humanitarian response, Jess explores the structural, social and adaptive sides of resilience, why returning to “normal" isn't always a measure of success, and what changes when communities are placed at the centre of disaster preparedness and recovery. From the way we respond to crises to the systems we build before they happen, this episode sets the scene for the conversations ahead, challenging some familiar assumptions and asking what it really takes to build resilience that lasts.

  • 7 Episodes

About

The hazard was mapped, the risks were assessed, the plan was approved, and then reality showed up. But We Had A Plan is a podcast about disasters, risk, resilience, and the wonderfully unpredictable variables that determine what happens when things don't quite go to plan. Hosted by Professional Disaster Manager and Disaster Nomad founder Jess van Schalkwyk, expect conversations with experts, practitioners and fascinating humans about the incidents, ideas, lessons and occasional curveballs that might help us do things better next time. Sometimes technical. Sometimes uncomfortable. Occasionally unhinged. Always curious. Because having a plan is one thing, but finding out whether it survives contact with reality is another.

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