<p>As a faculty member at a public administration program that’s getting into this area, I can attest that it’s serious stuff with a substantial market. Disasters, whether natural or man-made, are the classic low probability/high impact event–a lot of stress, with people trying to figure out what’s going on and how to deal with it under conditions of extreme urgency. Disaster management agencies have been historically dominated by “first responders”–mostly fire/EMS–with little attention to other involved agencies such as law enforcement or public health. The typical disaster, whether natural or man-made, typically has a lot of agencies responding with little prior planning or coordinating, and there’s always a lot of squabbling about who’s in charge–the NYC Police and Fire Departments at 9/11 had separate command structures and never said a word to each other, which probably got a lot of firefighters and policemen killed. Ditto with Katrina–multiple fed/state/local agencies running around all trying to be in charge, with the result that the response was late and fairly pitiful at a time when it very badly needed to be effective. Disaster management is getting folded into homeland security agencies in a lot of states, but some still have free-standing emergency management agencies.</p>