Zeroth Responder
America’s emergency response system — the network of fire departments, ambulance services, and law enforcement agencies that answers when you dial 911 — was built for a country that no longer exists. Three independent forces are converging to widen the gap between calling for help and help arriving. This is a book about those forces, the people caught in that gap, and what comes next.
Zeroth Responder is forthcoming from John Geoghegan and Stephen Hudak.
Latest
April 23, 2026
Three structural forces — demographic transformation, fiscal constraint, and institutional decline — are quietly lengthening the distance between an emergency and the response to it.
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