What I learned during a summer in emergency management at the 2026 FIFA World Cup

When the 2026 FIFA World Cup came to Atlanta Stadium, most of the world watched through viewing parties, packed stadiums and sold-out fan festivals.

My experience was a little different. I saw the World Cup through 240+ hours of activation, often in windowless emergency operation centers, learning what it means to keep an event of this magnitude safe.

Working alongside Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency (AFCEMA), I spent over five weeks rotating through roles and rooms. I served as a liaison at both the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the Joint Operations Center (JOC), supporting the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Preparedness. I also assumed the role of EOC Manager at AFCEMA twice.

Each seat offered a new perspective on the same operation, and together these experiences shaped how I think about coordination, communication, and safety.

In the JOC, I served as a solo liaison, representing AFCEMA in a crowded room run collaboratively by several agencies, each with their own priorities, communication styles, and ways of framing risk.

As information came in over the radio, I learned to quickly and accurately translate it for neighboring EOCs. With time being a precious commodity in emergency operations, this became one of the most transferable skills I gained from the experience.

Stepping into the role of EOC Manager was a different kind of challenge. Rather than representing AFCEMA, I was responsible for the room itself.

I led initial and closing briefings, set up and took down the room’s technology, maintained situational awareness across cameras and drone feeds, and made real-time calls about what mattered enough to escalate to others.

Holding this position during two fully operational days taught me more about decisive, structured leadership than any single training exercise could have.

While emergency management is built upon relationships and partner agencies, it is also built on documentation.

Every day, I built the Incident Action Plan (IAP) for AFCEMA. This included mapping staff locations, maintaining ICS organizational charts, and documenting actions taken during the operational period by all agencies present in the EOC. I was also responsible for writing and distributing the daily operations briefing for supporting agencies, ensuring high-level information was being shared and ensuring everyone understood how FIFA operations were impacting Fulton County throughout the duration of the event. Learning how staffing and capacity were determined helped me understand the significance of an operation of this scale without ever stepping foot inside the stadium.

Beyond the operations center, I also had the opportunity to see the FIFA Fan Festival from a perspective few ever get looking behind the scenes, both fully activated and completely empty. Walking the grounds with and without crowds gave me a real sense of scale, how much planning goes into a space before a single person walks through the gates, and how quickly that same space transforms once it is filled with tens of thousands of fans.

Coordination at this scale is often not very glamorous.

It is early mornings and late nights, watching drone feeds for the best angles, watching for activity in WebEOC, and of course, discussing who is going to win it all.

It is asking a lot of questions, and being consistently met with generosity from respected professionals.

It is realizing that the key to a successful operation is often found in the less flashy parts; daily IAPs, a well-run briefing, constant documentation, a liaison who translates information accurately under pressure, and a logistics team providing great food to keep spirits high.

I came into this summer already committed to emergency management as a field of study, and I left it with a more specific and grounded understanding of why that commitment matters.

The World Cup coming to Atlanta was something I never could have imagined, and getting to experience it on the team responsible for keeping it safe was a privilege I do not take lightly.

This experience showed me that the professionals who make large-scale events look effortless have spent months, sometimes years, building connections and establishing trust. I am grateful to have learned from the people who make mass-gathering event safety look easy.

Written by Makayla Peebles, MPH

PhD Student, Health Services Research