Crisis Leadership & Coordination

c. 22 BCE · about 2,050 years ago

Augustus took personal charge of Rome's grain supply after unrest over shortages

Establishing the office of praefectus annonae to coordinate grain shipment, storage and distribution to the capital, the arrangement became a standing administrative system for preventing food-supply crises from turning into unrest, maintained across the empire for centuries.

1255 · 771 years ago

The Dutch water boards formed among the world's oldest continuously functioning crisis-coordination bodies

Regional authorities such as the Hoogheemraadschap van Rijnland coordinated dyke maintenance, drainage and flood response across communities that depended on shared water defences, an early model of standing institutional coordination for a recurring hazard rather than an ad hoc response.

1377 · 649 years ago

The city-state of Ragusa introduced the first formal quarantine system

Arriving ships and travellers from plague-affected areas were required to wait in isolation before entering the city, a coordinated public-health measure copied by Venice and other Mediterranean ports and the origin of the term quarantine.

• Venice adopted and extended the practice soon after

1740s · about 280 years ago

China's Qing dynasty operated an extensive state granary network to coordinate famine relief

Ever-normal granaries stocked in peacetime released grain in coordination across provinces during shortages, with reporting systems that let officials track need and move supplies over long distances, an administrative system later studied as among the most sophisticated of the pre-modern era.

1755 · 271 years ago

The Marquis of Pombal organised a centrally directed emergency response to the Lisbon earthquake

Following the earthquake, tsunami and fires that destroyed much of the city, Pombal's government requisitioned supplies, controlled prices to prevent profiteering, and directed burial and rebuilding efforts, an early example of a state taking systematic charge of disaster coordination.

1863 to 1864 · about 163 years ago

Henry Dunant founded the movement that became the International Committee of the Red Cross

Appalled by the suffering he witnessed after the Battle of Solferino, Dunant's campaigning led to the founding of the Red Cross and the first Geneva Convention, creating the framework and neutral intermediary still used to coordinate relief access in conflicts today.

1948 to 1949 · about 78 years ago

The United States, Britain and their allies coordinated a year-long airlift to supply blockaded West Berlin

Aircraft flew continuous supply runs to sustain the city after the Soviet Union cut land access, requiring detailed coordination of airspace, scheduling and logistics among several air forces and demonstrating that a large multinational relief operation could be sustained over many months.

1961 · 65 years ago

Japan passed its Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act

The law followed the 1959 Ise Bay Typhoon, one of the country's deadliest storms, and set out a structured chain of coordination between national, prefectural and municipal authorities that still forms the legal basis of Japan's disaster response system.

1979 · 47 years ago

The United States created the Federal Emergency Management Agency

FEMA consolidated more than a hundred fragmented federal disaster programmes into a single agency responsible for coordinating preparation, response and recovery across federal, state and local government, becoming a widely referenced model for national coordination structures.

• The agency was folded into the Department of Homeland Security

1980s · 46 years ago

The field of crisis management emerged as a discipline following large-scale industrial and environmental disasters

The systematic study of crisis management originated in the 1980s in response to major industrial and environmental catastrophes. It established crisis handling as a distinct management discipline concerned with threats before, during and after an event, and became regarded as the most important process in public relations.

1982 · 44 years ago

Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million capsules after the Tylenol cyanide poisonings

In the autumn of 1982 a murderer added cyanide to Tylenol capsules on store shelves, killing seven people. Johnson & Johnson recalled and destroyed 31 million capsules at a cost of $100 million, an episode that became the canonical model of corporate crisis response.

1989 · 37 years ago

The Exxon Corporation ran a tanker aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska

On 24 March 1989 an Exxon tanker grounded in Prince William Sound. Exxon had no communication plan or team in place, sited its media centre in remote Valdez and its CEO shunned public involvement, making the spill a textbook failure of crisis coordination.

1991 · 35 years ago

The UN General Assembly created the modern international humanitarian coordination system

Resolution 46/182 established the position of Emergency Relief Coordinator and the cluster of agencies now known as OCHA, setting out principles for coordinating multiple UN bodies, governments and aid organisations that still structure international disaster and conflict response.

1993 · 33 years ago

The Pepsi Corporation managed a crisis over syringes claimed to be found in Diet Pepsi cans

Pepsi faced a crisis in 1993 beginning with claims that syringes had been discovered in cans of Diet Pepsi. The episode became a reference case in rebutting false product-tampering allegations through coordinated public communication.

1993 · 33 years ago

Exxon appointed a public relations manager to its management team

Four years after the Prince William Sound grounding, Exxon finally added a public relations manager to its management team. The delay is cited as evidence of the company's structural unpreparedness for crisis communication.

1994 · 32 years ago

A group of international psychoanalysts began a project applying crisis management to conflicts between national groups

From 1994 international psychoanalysts ran a project contributing to crisis management understood as the management of conflict between national groups. It extended crisis coordination thinking beyond corporate and disaster settings into intergroup and diplomatic conflict.

1996 · 30 years ago

Dr Rory Knight and Dr Deborah Pretty published a study on catastrophe impact on shareholder value

Commissioned by the Sedgewick Group at Templeton College, University of Oxford, Knight and Pretty studied how catastrophes affect an organisation's stock value. It became one of the foremost recognised pieces of evidence linking crisis management quality to financial outcomes.

October 1996 · 30 years ago

Odwalla Inc. faced an E. coli outbreak traced to its unpasteurised apple juice

An outbreak of E. coli in Washington state, California, Colorado and British Columbia was traced to unpasteurised apple juice made by Odwalla. The multi-jurisdiction outbreak became a standard case study in coordinated product-safety crisis handling.

March 2025 · last year

Myanmar's military government appealed for international help after a major earthquake struck amid ongoing civil war

The magnitude 7.7 quake devastated Mandalay and Sagaing, and international rescue and medical teams coordinated with the junta despite active fighting nearby, with humanitarian agencies reporting difficulty reaching some conflict-affected areas.

• Some armed opposition groups declared local ceasefires to allow aid through

January 2025 · last year

United Nations agencies scaled up aid coordination in Gaza after a ceasefire took hold

UNRWA, the World Food Programme and other agencies increased the volume of food, medical and shelter supplies entering Gaza once the ceasefire and exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas allowed more crossings to open, though access and distribution remained difficult and contested.

2025 · last year

Google expanded its AI-based flood forecasting tool to more rivers across Africa and South Asia

The Flood Hub system, built on hydrological data and machine learning, fed alerts to national disaster agencies in countries including India, Bangladesh and several African states, aiming to give authorities more lead time to coordinate evacuations.

December 2024 · 2 years ago

Mayotte exposed gaps in France's disaster coordination for its overseas territories after Cyclone Chido

The cyclone, the territory's worst in around ninety years, destroyed informal housing that sheltered a large undocumented population, and the slow arrival of aid drew criticism of coordination between Paris and local authorities in France's poorest department.

December 2024 · 2 years ago

Vanuatu received emergency assistance under a decades-old regional arrangement after an earthquake struck Port Vila

France, Australia and New Zealand activated the FRANZ arrangement, pooling military transport, medical teams and supplies to support the Pacific nation's own emergency services after the magnitude 7.3 quake damaged the capital's water, power and hospital infrastructure.

October 2024 · 2 years ago

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency had its hurricane response complicated by a surge of false claims about aid availability

As FEMA coordinated relief after Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck the south-eastern United States within weeks of each other, officials said false claims spreading online about withheld aid and confiscated property hampered outreach to affected communities.

• The incoming Trump administration proposed shifting more disaster response to states

October 2024 · 2 years ago

Spain faced criticism over confused alerts and delayed coordination during the Valencia floods

Flash flooding from an intense low-pressure system killed over two hundred people after regional and national authorities disagreed over responsibility for issuing warnings, and the delay in the emergency alert reaching residents' phones became a focus of subsequent inquiries.

• Valencia's regional president faced sustained calls to resign over the response

October to November 2024 · 2 years ago

The Philippines coordinated evacuations through an unusual cluster of storms within a few weeks

The national disaster council and local governments moved hundreds of thousands of people ahead of a run of typhoons that struck in quick succession, drawing on evacuation and shelter systems refined over successive storm seasons.

September 2024 · 2 years ago

Nigeria coordinated a mass evacuation of Maiduguri after a dam breach flooded the city

The collapse of the Alau Dam sent floodwater through Borno State's capital, displacing hundreds of thousands of people already affected by conflict in the region, and the national emergency agency worked with international humanitarian organisations already present to reach camps for the displaced.

2024 to 2025 · last year

African Risk Capacity paid out drought-response funding to African Union member states

The continental risk-pooling facility, which sells parametric drought and disaster insurance to governments, released pre-arranged funds intended to reach affected populations faster than traditional appeals launched only after a disaster is declared.

2022 · 4 years ago

The Scientific Advice Mechanism to the European Commission published advice on strategic crisis management in the EU

The 2022 advice surveyed existing emergency management institutions and mechanisms across Europe and recommended updates to improve the Union's resilience and preparedness. It represented a supranational attempt to rationalise fragmented crisis coordination arrangements.

2014 · 12 years ago

British Standards Institution published BS11200:2014 on crisis management

The British Standard BS11200:2014 set out terminology and frameworks relating to crisis, focused on corporate exposure to risk and to black swan events posing significant strategic threats. It provided a common reference foundation for organisations building crisis coordination capability.

2010 · 16 years ago

Procter & Gamble Co publicly denied reports that Pampers Dry Max caused rashes

In 2010 Procter & Gamble called reports that its new Pampers with Dry Max caused rashes and skin irritation completely false, seeking to contain a public relations threat to its biggest diaper innovation in 25 years. A Facebook protest group grew past 4,500 members, marking social media as a crisis vector.

2007 · 19 years ago

Mattel Inc. handled two product recalls in two weeks over Chinese exports

In the summer of 2007 the toy maker Mattel faced two product recalls within a fortnight amid wider problems with exports from China. The company responded to more than 300 media inquiries in the United States alone in a single week, illustrating the communications load of a modern recall crisis.

2003 · 23 years ago

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute found deficiencies in school district emergency plans

A national study reported through the School Violence Resource Center found that many public school districts had important deficiencies in their emergency and disaster plans. The finding documented a gap between the adoption of crisis planning and its adequacy.

2001 · 25 years ago

Educational institutions adopted crisis management planning after Columbine and the September 11 attacks

In the wake of the Columbine High School massacre, the September 11 attacks of 2001 and campus shootings such as the Virginia Tech massacre, schools and universities at all levels turned to formal crisis management. This spread crisis coordination capability into the education sector.

August 2000 · 26 years ago

Ford and the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company entered a public tyre safety dispute after more than 100 deaths

The Ford-Firestone dispute broke in August 2000 over defective tyres linked to more than 100 deaths. Both companies said little about remedial action until called to testify before Congress in Washington, a case of failed joint crisis coordination between partner firms.