New Publication “Managing for Long-Term Recovery in the Aftermath of a Disaster” – Read it With Us!

          In my initial relationship with CARRI as the local researcher in Charleston, one of the aspects of disaster recovery was gathering what we called ‘nuggets.’ These were, in our mind, some things that communities did to smooth the path toward ‘getting back to normal.’

            An example that comes to mind is that Mayor Riley arranged for utility workers to stay in a vacant hotel (which has since been renovated and is now on the historic register) in Charleston. Rather than having to drive their equipment to a central site, they could leave it where they were working, get on a bus, and come back to a meal and bed. This undoubtedly hastened Charleston’s recovery from Hugo.

            An excellent book that contains many ‘nuggets’ has recently been published by the Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI)—Charles J. Alesch, Lucy A. Arendt, and James N. Holly co-authored a book, Managing for Long-Term Recovery in the Aftermath of a Disaster, PERI, 2009. You can find the book at their website:  http://www.riskinstitute.org/peri/

            The authors are to be praised for taking on the issue of disaster recovery from a holistic perspective and giving a lot of good information in a very readable format. I would encourage any practitioner who has an interest in disaster recovery to read it. This book not only contains many examples of what communities did right in recovering from a disaster, but also others where they made mistakes. All are nuggets making the book a very worthwhile read.

            The best parts of the book are in patiently explaining how disasters are really complex socio-economic events. We on the CARRI Team have constantly said that recovery must engage the ‘full fabric’ of the community and that is a different way of saying the same thing.

            The book is particularly effective at explaining and categorizing cascading events, the slow unfolding of the consequences of disaster that are often unnoticed and may take years to occur. The authors break out the immediate consequences of disasters and then explain clearly how these can lead to more immediately following consequences and to systemic community consequences that in turn, create ripple reverberations and consequences. They offer excellent, concrete examples of all these, grounding them in their on-the-ground research method that they used in questioning individuals in specific communities on how they endured different disasters.

            If all this sounds complicated, it is not—and that I why I recommend the book.  One of the things they note, for example, is that sometimes business failures as a result of a disaster may take many more years to occur. The business owner holds on for as long as they can, linked to their communities by a sense of place and community, and simply cannot do it anymore. The success stories they tell are equally as enlightening.

            What Alesch et. al, know is that a disaster affects the whole community—recovery is not about any single component—the infrastructure, economy or social aspects.

            At this point, what I would invite is for any who are reading this blog to get the book and read it. It is worthwhile. Engage in some commentary and we can begin to exchange our views on it. I have some problems with it, but that is because we are all passionate about disaster recovery. You are welcome to respond to this blog or engage me directly at feltsa@cofc.edu.