Preparedness and Resilience: Are they the Same?

A couple of weeks ago the US Chamber of Commerce convened an informal meeting of people who are actively involved in community resilience-related activities and initiatives at the local, state and federal levels. This resilience-related work is frequently couched in different terms – the most frequent being public/private partnerships – but all of it can be seen to further the ability of communities to withstand and recover from significant disruptions. The individuals present represented the private sector, research programs, government, trade associations and on-the-ground resilience projects. I was privileged to be invited to attend and participate.

One of the areas of agreement reached by this ad hoc group was that there is a critical need for the nation’s leadership to clearly establish resilience as an important national goal. Several, but not all, of the participants referred to this goal as creating a “culture of preparedness” thereby seeming to equate “preparedness” to “resilience.” In fact, at least one participant went so far as to declare that the idea of resilience was nothing new but was simply preparedness under a new title.

In an earlier Blog (June 27, 2009), I argued that preparedness is the necessary foundation upon which an expanded continuum of emergency management must rest and that one of the results of that expanded continuum (and maybe the most significant one) is resilience. One prepares to prevent, protect, respond and recover and success in executing the results of that preparation is evidenced by the resilience demonstrated during recovery. To me this seems to be different than simply equating preparedness with resilience.

Is this just a distinction without a difference or is it a discussion worth having?