Salinas began a yearlong term as Duke University’s fourth Climate Leader in Residence (CLIR) in June 2025. She is based at the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. Salinas most recently served as Deputy Administrator for Resilience at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under the Biden administration.
As summer approaches, organizations, communities and households are preparing for a season increasingly shaped by extreme heat, severe weather, wildfire smoke, grid strain, travel disruptions and other climate-related stresses. Duke’s recent Heat Awareness Week offers a timely reminder: summer readiness is no longer just about planning vacations, closing out the school year or adjusting office schedules. It is about preparing people and systems to function in a hotter, more volatile world.
A recent Duke article, “Extreme Heat Is Rising. What Are Duke Researchers Learning About Its Impacts?”, highlights how researchers are examining heat’s impacts on health, work, infrastructure, agriculture, communities and ecosystems. It is a useful starting point for a broader conversation about resilience — not only as a climate or emergency-management issue, but as a capability every organization increasingly needs.
Across sectors, leaders now operate in an environment where disruption is constant. Climate volatility, supply-chain fragility, cyber outages, financial uncertainty, burnout and rising insurance costs shape daily decisions. Yet the most consequential shift underway is not the hazards themselves — it is the widening gap between organizations whose people know how to operate under pressure and those overwhelmed by the pace of change.
Most organizations have invested heavily in efficiency, but not enough in resilience — the capability that enables people to anticipate disruption, adapt under stress and recover quickly with less loss. The cost of that gap is accelerating. According to NOAA, the U.S. experienced 27 separate billion-dollar disasters in 2024, totaling $182.7 billion in losses. By mid-2025, Climate Central had already documented 14 additional billion-dollar events exceeding $100 billion. Organizations that prepare their people for volatility don’t just “ride out” disruption — they protect health, maintain continuity and recover faster.
Today’s Challenge: People and Systems Exposed to Daily Disruption
Headline disasters are only part of the story. Authoritative analyses such as S&P Global’s physical-risk assessment show that heat, drought, water stress, flooding and wildfires are materially affecting global companies. For most employers, communities and institutions, the impact is felt in day-to-day operations long before a crisis appears in headlines.
Physical climate risk is now operational risk. Heat, flooding, wildfire smoke, water scarcity, erosion and grid instability increasingly disrupt schedules, workforce safety, supply chains, public services, insurance and daily life. The Congressional Budget Office reports that climate hazards are already reducing labor productivity and economic output, while EPA and NOAA document widespread operational impacts from air quality and wildfire smoke.
Heat is reducing labor capacity and increasing health risk. OSHA and NIOSH warn that extreme heat erodes productivity and increases injuries. As the recent Duke article on extreme heat and its impacts highlights, heat affects health, infrastructure, agriculture, work, schools and community well-being. It is one of the clearest examples of why resilience must be understood as a practical, people-centered capability.
Water scarcity and flooding disrupt cooling-water supply, logistics access and staffing patterns, quietly eroding output. Wildfire smoke slowed work across the Northeast and Midwest during the 2023 Canadian fires, according to EPA and NOAA, affecting both outdoor and indoor workers.
Supply chains remain fragile. Research from McKinsey and the World Economic Forum shows that climate shocks affecting a single supplier can trigger multi-week downstream disruption. These bottlenecks ripple across industries with little warning and compound other operational pressures.
Insurance volatility is rising. Deloitte and the OECD report steep premium increases and widening protection gaps for climate-exposed assets, affecting budgets, workforce planning and investment decisions. In some regions, coverage is becoming more limited or cost-prohibitive, forcing organizations to adjust operating models.
Cyber and cloud outages compound physical risk. Major AWS events have triggered multi-sector slowdowns, revealing how few organizations have trained their employees to function effectively in degraded-mode operations. These disruptions show how digital infrastructure, workforce continuity and operational resilience are increasingly interconnected.
Burnout is becoming structural. Repeated disruptions — heat waves, smoke, outages, floods — accumulate physical and psychological strain. Studies show significant mental-health impacts from extreme weather events when employees and communities lack support, training and decision-making frameworks for navigating unpredictable conditions.
These are no longer isolated “risk events” — they are daily pressures revealing deep capability gaps.
What’s Needed: Preparing People to Understand, Adapt and Recover
Organizations and communities cannot control volatility, but they can prepare people to navigate it. Five capabilities consistently separate those that falter from those that maintain continuity and recover faster.
1. Understanding the changing risk landscape
Risk literacy means recognizing climate-informed, data-driven signals. People need to understand which risks are rising in their regions; who and what is exposed across teams, neighborhoods, suppliers and critical services; how risks compound; and how these exposures influence safety, productivity and demand. When people understand the “why” behind disruptions, they can anticipate impacts rather than react to them.
2. Reducing vulnerabilities in processes, teams and systems
Resilient organizations train people to spot single points of failure in staffing, suppliers, workflows, communication channels and critical services. Cross-training, diversified sourcing and redundancy in decision pathways prevent disruptions from halting operations. When teams know where they are vulnerable, they can adjust before a disruption becomes a crisis.
3. Adapting rapidly and intentionally as conditions shift
Adaptation is both individual and strategic. Individuals modify shifts, routing, outdoor activities or workflows within hours. Organizations adjust strategies, sourcing and operations as risks evolve, shifting schedules, reallocating staff or redesigning service pathways. Adaptation is no longer an annual planning exercise; it is a daily capability.
4. Operating effectively in degraded conditions
Organizations that practice degraded-mode operations — limited power, reduced staff, delayed supplies or partial data — maintain service far more reliably. Backup infrastructure, flexible workflows and continuity drills allow teams to preserve essential functions amid disruption. The most resilient organizations assume degraded conditions will occur and train accordingly.
5. Recovering quickly — and recovering smarter
Resilient recovery means debriefing what failed, tightening playbooks and using recovery investments to reduce future risk. After Hurricane Helene in 2024, for example, Duke Energy restored power to millions of customers through pre-staged crews, hardened infrastructure and rehearsed protocols — a clear demonstration of resilience implemented long before landfall.
The Results: Higher Productivity, Faster Recovery, Stronger Culture
A workforce and community trained for resilience delivers measurable returns across operations, culture and continuity.
Operational continuity. Heat-health and smoke protocols reduce stoppages and support stable output. Even when conditions deteriorate, trained teams maintain service levels more effectively.
Faster recovery. Organizations that pre-position crews, stage inventory, diversify supply routes and empower decision-makers recover faster and serve as stabilizing anchors during regional disruptions.
Talent retention and engagement. Occupational-psychology research links resilience training with lower burnout, higher engagement and reduced turnover, especially during prolonged stress periods.
Customer and community continuity. BNY Mellon’s Enterprise Resiliency Office demonstrates how geographic diversification, redundant infrastructure and rigorous continuity protocols maintain service during system-wide disruptions. The same principle applies across sectors: continuity depends on people, systems and decisions working together under stress.
Stronger trust and stability. The World Bank/GFDRR “triple dividend of resilience” shows that resilience investments generate avoided losses, operational gains and societal benefits. Organizations that protect continuity build trust with customers, investors, employees and communities.
The Future Belongs to the Most Resilient People and Organizations
Daily disruptions are intensifying, and most organizations are not yet prepared. The leaders that will thrive in the next decade are those whose people understand risk, anticipate cascading impacts, operate in degraded environments, adapt quickly and recover in ways that reduce future exposure.
Learning and development leaders, human resources professionals, operations teams, public-sector leaders and community institutions are central to this transformation. As we enter summer, Duke Heat Awareness Week offers a useful starting point: extreme heat is not only a weather issue. It is a readiness issue, a workforce issue, a health issue and a resilience issue.
This article launches a broader summer-ready series on how people and organizations can prepare for a hotter, more disrupted world. The organizations and communities that thrive won’t simply be efficient or sustainable — they will be resilient. And resilience begins with people.
This article is adapted from a version first published by Training Industry for learning and development leaders in January 2026.
