Last year, the director of operations and exercises put together a drill to show how national stockpiles of medication would be distributed in Johnson County in the event of a flu pandemic or similar emergency. A high school was used as the distribution point, and medication (in this case, M & M candy) was given to high school students as various officials and medical personnel assumed the roles they would play if such a disaster really occurred.

Image Tammy N. Karlgaard is a regional emergency management planner for a commission in Chesapeake, Va. Credit... D. Kevin Elliott for The New York Times

While many emergency management jobs are in the public arena, corporations like Wal-Mart Stores and Walt Disney, along with universities and hospitals, are also hiring emergency managers, who may have titles like continuity planner or business recovery planner. In addition, a small number of businesses specialize in disaster management.

“Disaster is a growth business,” Mr. Blanchard said. “I have never heard anyone speculate that they think disaster losses will start going down in the near, mid- or far distant future.” He says that disaster losses have doubled or tripled in each of the last four decades, and that the complexity of disaster response is also driving growth in the field.

“The job has become very complex,” said Robert C. Bohlmann, director of emergency management in York County, Me., who has been volunteering or working in the field for more than 50 years.

In the mid-1950s in Salisbury, Conn., he volunteered at age 15 to organize the ground observer corps, which watched for low-flying planes as part of civil defense efforts during the cold war. “There was a lot of good training in civil defense,” he said. “It was very much geared to preparing for the big one out of the sky.”

For many years, he continued to volunteer, receiving a stipend of $3,000 a year in his last position before taking the York County job in 1994.

Salaries in the field vary, typically reflecting the level of risk in a particular region and an employee’s education and experience. County directors of emergency management are typically paid $60,000 to $70,000 a year, with salaries in disaster-prone areas closer to $100,000, Mr. Bohlmann said.