John Plodinec

The Seven Ingredients of Community Resilience

June 29th, 2011 - John Plodinec  

Last week I read an interesting article by Karen Reivich on the resilience of children. I was struck by how relevant her seven ingredients were to communities.  So, with apologies to her for my modifications – the Seven Ingredients of Community Resilience. 

The first ingredient is trust.  For children, this means being aware of their emotions and being able to share them with people they trust.  For communities, it is building trust so that everyone can speak honestly and openly about their values, their hopes, their concerns and their community.

The second ingredient is impulse control.  Resilient children have developed a “stop and think” mechanism that helps them overcome the urge to act on their impulses. (Some of us are still working on that!)  Resilient communities recognize that, after a disaster, there is a tremendous urge to get back to normal life quickly.  Thus, these communities develop a vision and goals and sometimes even an action plan prior to a disaster to guide the thousands of individual actions that their members will take after it occurs.

Resilient children and resilient communities both have “realistic optimism.”  They are able to recognize that things are less than perfect, but nevertheless have an upbeat belief that things will get better.  For both children and communities, this optimism breeds health, effectiveness, and the ability to look at things honestly – what Nikos Kazantzakis calls “staring into the abyss.”

Closely allied with realistic optimism is the fourth ingredient – self-confidence.  Both resilient children and communities are aware of their strengths and of their ability to use them.  They both recognize that they can not only cope with adversity but can effect change as well.

The next ingredient is empathy – the ability to make meaningful connections with others.  Anyone who has followed the work of Rick Weil looking at recovery after Katrina recognizes that community connections – both the strong ones inside the community and the weaker ones to the outside world – may be even more important for recovery than material resources.

Just as realistic optimism and self-confidence are closely aligned, so are the last to ingredients – reaching out and flexible thinking.  By reaching out, Reivich means a willingness to try new things.  For communities, this implies an openness to innovative approaches to solve wicked problems.  Flexible thinking is the ability to look at things from different perspectives.  For communities this implies not only a willingness to consider new ideas, but an innate interest in getting the whole picture, not just that from the leader’s perch.

Mix these ingredients with a generous amount of community involvement and bake in the passion of people who care about their community.  All in all, a good recipe for a resilient community.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Where are the Feds?

June 22nd, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

It seems virtually certain that the next federal budget will have significant cuts to Community Development Block Grants, commonly referred to as “CDBG.” Some have called for the elimination of the program, arguing the federal government can no longer afford it.

Created in 1974, CDBG has given local governments throughout the US Billions of discretionary dollars that the communities have used primarily to improve infrastructure. Money could be used, for example, to do curbing and guttering in a low-income area or to provide beautification projects for blighted downtowns or improve the storm readiness of housing. As a block grant, the money could be used in an array of projects contributing to community development.

Over the thirty-five years plus that the feds have given CDBG grants, communities have come to rely heavily on the resources for infrastructure improvement. But with the federal government in the midst of suffering the worst budget woes in its history, it is all too tempting to cut programs that do not directly impact its own activities.

Why do I write this for a CARRI blog? There are two reasons.

First, and perhaps most importantly, CARRI has always taken the position that in the event of a disaster, communities will likely be more on their own than they think they will be.

After the recent tornado onslaught in Mississippi, some residents who accepted FEMA trailers were distressed to find out their community zoning laws banned new trailers. This was for good reason. Trailers don’t perform well in high wind. So, being on your own can also means that you may not get what you want or need. After Hugo, Charleston was inundated with donated clothing. There was truckload after truckload of winter garments that came in—at a time when the temperature was hovering in the 90s.

Researchers have consistently shown that the expectation of government aid exceeds what can or will be done. Most may remember the painted sign on a New Orleans home after Katrina that asked plaintively, “Where’s FEMA?” The good news is that FEMA was there. The bad news is that FEMA was there in a way that could never hope to meet expectations.

Second, given the state of the federal government’s budget, it is unlikely the money that locals have come to rely on for infrastructure improvement will ever be restored. Communities will no doubt not take up the slack by raising taxes, so the rate of crumbling of our infrastructure will accelerate.

Resilient communities cannot spin yarn into gold. But they can and should plan on recovering from disasters by using what little yarn they have in strategic ways that are thought out in advance. They can also be clear on how much they can actually get from outside governments and volunteer organizations. The CARRI Community Resilience System (CRS) can help them do that and point the way to how they can plan to recover from inevitable disasters.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Lessons Learned

June 6th, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

As Joplin, MO begins the gruesome task of turning from disaster response to recovery, there will be undoubtedly a lot of writing about lessons learned.

We at CARRI have always held that sometimes, for good reasons, emergency managers have taken actions that delay recovery. One such instance we discover is that those who know/think they lost loved ones were not being given access to their bodies.

The doctors and morticians were being careful, I know. But in the midst of being careful, they were preventing people from having closure and moving on. Thankfully, they revised their way of dealing with grieving relatives. Rather than rely on DNA testing, they decided to allow people to identify relatives by a distinguishing mark or feature, such as a tattoo. A good and wise move.

DNA testing could have taken days/weeks. In the meantime, the painful process of recovery and healing would be stalled for many as they awaited confirmation when all it would have taken is describing something distinctive—guess I’d be the guy with the big belly! Remember, humor, even in disaster is important.

But now the questions—all worthy of research and recounting—about recovery will come forth:

Did Joplin have a debris management plan in place? How many small businesses had business continuity plans in place? How about the destroyed hospital, did it have a business continuity plan?

Answers to these, and many other ones are exactly what CARRI is working on to help communities self-assess their resilience. Timing everything in this case. Too bad Joplin could not have been a ‘test’ CARRI community.