Arthur (Andy) Felts

It can’t happen to me

September 12th, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

As we watched Irene skirt along the East Coast, it became very clear that many buildings in both coastal and inland communities could see serious flooding. Also of note was that evidently many owners do not have flood insurance.

Many may not know that regular homeowner’s insurance does not cover flooding. This was the reason for protracted legal cases on insurance reimbursement after Katrina. If a home was destroyed by water (flood), then private insurers did not have to reimburse for damages. If the owner had enough foresight to buy flood insurance—separately purchased through an insurance agent but backed by the US government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)—then they would be reimbursed. If the home was destroyed by wind, then private insurance would cover—but when a home was simply gone in an area that had both high wind and water, it was very difficult to say which destroyed it.

Homes and buildings in high-risk flood areas with mortgages from federally regulated or insured lenders are required to have flood insurance. But many homes that could flood in an exceptional event are not required to have flood insurance. Such homes are not within a FEMA defined “flood zone.”

 Zones that begin with “A” or “V” are high-risk flood zones, and the purchase of flood insurance is federally mandated on loans secured by properties located in communities that participate in the National Flood Insurance Program. Zones “C,” “B,” and “X” have a lower risk of flooding, and the federal mandatory purchase requirements do not apply. “V” flood zones are on the coast and are subject to wind-driven water, i.e., waves. “A” zones are subject to a 1% or greater chance of flooding in any given year; in short, they are in the 100-year flood plain.

Since most people buy their homes with a mortgage, if they are not required to buy flood insurance they assume they do not need it. With water forced many miles inland and torrential rains, many Katrina property owners found out the hard way that they were not going to be reimbursed or only partially reimbursed for their loss.

Access to outside resources—in this case, insurance money—is a critical part of community resilience. In lower flood risk areas, NFIP-backed insurance can be as low as $129 a year. That seems like a very small amount to insure against the risk of total loss.

Resilient communities build public awareness of the risks they face and the potential losses—they do not rely on mortgage companies to tell them their risk. No doubt many without flood insurance wished they had known this as they watched Irene move up the coast.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Joplin, Missouri: An encouraging story of resilience

August 18th, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

One of the things that leaders who have reflectively seen their communities through disasters have consistently said is that people want to feel like life is getting back to normal. It makes sense. Immediately after a disaster there is often a sense of euphoria—people are glad that loved ones and neighbors have survived unharmed. For all, whether they have suffered a loss or not, it is in the human spirit to rise to the occasion.

But then the grind of recovery comes. I remember in Charleston seeing debris truck after debris truck after debris truck for several months. I remember getting several flat tires from roofing nails that were blown off roofs.

I remember the task of cleaning up my office building after it took several inches of surge water. Many thought the College of Charleston should shut down for the semester. But President Harry Lightsey defied those faculty and staff, and the College reopened a mere week and one-half after Hugo. The College’s buildings were largely ok—some with water damage and blown out windows and others with stripped roofs. Getting the College of Charleston kids back on the city’s streets was a remarkably fresh breath of normalcy.

In yesterday’s (August 17th, 2011) New York Times, there was a remarkable story. I quote the reporter, A.G. Sulzberger in the story:

JOPLIN, Mo. — When the red brick schools here were reduced to rubble by a deadly tornado three months ago, local leaders announced a goal that seemed like a longshot: the new school year would start on time.

But on Wednesday the city made good on its promise, and students reunited for the first day of school, marking the end of a difficult summer as they streamed excitedly into makeshift facilities that replaced the 10 schools damaged or destroyed by the tornado on May 22.

As they exchanged standard so-good-to-see-you-again greetings — the boys slapping hands, the girls embracing — juniors and seniors swapped schedules and marveled at the modern touches of their new high school, built in just 55 days inside a recently vacant department store at the back of a shopping mall. Outside, residents of a local retirement home lined the streets to welcome them.

 What could make life seem more normal than kids going back to school in the fall? With effective leadership, Joplin was able to achieve a “longshot.” Going for a reopening of schools likely took some priority over other things that needed tending, but such are the choices we have to make in planning recovery.

It is a remarkable story that gives me heart in the ability of communities to be resilient. Joplin has given us all a clear message about what is important in being resilient, and we should both take heed and applaud them. A difficult summer notwithstanding, the community has likely turned the recovery corner.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Social Capital: A necessary but not sufficicent condition for a resilient recovery

July 8th, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

There is a growing (and welcome) recognition amongst many disaster recovery researchers on the importance of social capital in rapid and equitable recovery. This is welcome because all too often disaster mitigation and recovery strategies have ignored this important dimension of our lives.

Welcome as well is a recognition that some actions taken during emergency response may actually erode social capital. Before Hurricane Hugo, in the Charleston region, there was one vehicle access point to Sullivan’s Island and the Isle of Palms. That was the Sawyer Bridge—a drawbridge that was literally spun off its balance point by Hugo’s winds.

Residents of Sullivan’s Island and the Isle of Palms were denied boat access to the island by National Guardsmen. The argument was the islands were overrun with snakes (an unlikely event since a surge would have swept them inland) and that structures were unstable and dangerous. The latter point is valid, but in many other areas throughout the region that actually were harder hit that the two islands, residents could not be stopped from entering because they had multiple points of access. I walked down King Street in downtown Charleston two days after the Hurricane when the street was littered with broken glass and everything from pieces of metal roofs to downed street lights.

From a risk analysis standpoint, the issue was one of someone stepping on a nail or getting cut from a sharp object. I do not question the good intentions of emergency managers here—rather only whether or not they factored social capital into their decision. Some individuals had a chance to sift through their wrecked homes and salvage things that were personally valuable to them. After several days of rain and weeks of being denied access, much of what they could have recovered was no longer recoverable.

Social capital is about holding on to a sense of place and that includes connections to the past. This is why it should be included in our analysis of community resilience.

But at the same time, by vaulting social capital to the forefront, I wonder if there is too much of a backlash.

In the social sciences, we speak of “necessary” and “sufficient” conditions for something to happen. A sufficient condition is one that in and of itself is enough to cause something to happen. A necessary condition is just that, but not sufficient to cause something to happen. Water in the atmosphere is necessary for rain, but not sufficient in and of itself. It needs other factors—temperature, etc. to make rain occur.

In terms of resilience, we should see social capital as necessary. Absent strong bonds to community and place, both created by social capital, community resilience will be seriously degraded. But social capital is not sufficient in and of itself to create community resilience.

Aside from social capital, communities need access to resources for effective and efficient recovery. Resources can come in many forms—help from outside volunteers, insurance, donations, government aid, savings accounts, etc. But these are not sufficient for recovery absent a resolve on the part of community members to stay and rebuild.

In addition, a community whose infrastructure is in bad shape before a disaster will have recovery hindered no matter how much social capital they have.

Recovery is about time in a very important way—how quickly a community can rebound from a disaster. Strong reserves of social capital are necessary, but so are access to resources. So is ensuring that a community’s infrastructure is maintained. There are a lot of necessary parts of recovery. None, alone, are sufficient.

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.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Individual Versus Community Resilience

May 25th, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

One of the more interesting things to me about the flooding that is occurring in our heartland is that some are going to extraordinary measures to preserve their property. Recently, a picture of a single home, sand bagged, was shown. Gas generators were pumping what water seeped in as it inevitably did. The home was a bit of an island in a sea. It depended upon gasoline (or diesel) that might not be as readily available in a matter of hours. If it had a fire, then no fire department could respond. If someone broke in, then no police department could respond.

I do not fault any homeowner for trying to protect their investment. It is only natural. However, as they say, there are three things that are important about the value of a piece of property. Location, location, and location.

When I first moved to Charleston, I purchased a home next to one that was under construction when Hurricane Hugo hit. It was a pile of wood after that and was not removed for three years. That affected the value of my home. But more importantly, it robbed me of neighbors and a sense of place so I could watch them plant flowers and have kids playing in the yard. Instead, I lived with a pile of rubble for three years. That was not good.

I want to be careful in saying this-so I will do so as straightforwardly as I can. CARRI is about community resilience. Individual resilience contributes to that. But becoming a resilient community is more than that. The saying is that ‘no person is an island.’ But that is exactly one sense I got in watching the sand bagged home surrounded by water. In the best of all possible worlds, that home would become an anchor for rebuilding a neighborhood. But more anchors might be necessary and would certainly factor in people deciding to live there.

As we watch the flooding, we should realize that we are in a common boat, figuratively speaking. Community resilience is about learning how to protect our communities. In the end, the community is what caused us to choose to live where we did.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Planning to Recover: Some thoughts on what we know will happen when the flood waters recede

May 10th, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

In his last blog, my good colleague, Warren Edwards wrote about what a CARRI Community would do differently after a disaster. He emphasized the need to communicate and develop a vision for a post-disaster community. This blog is intended to follow that line and delve more into what a CARRI Community might do.

 As I write this, the Mississippi Valley is experiencing unprecedented floods that will likely exceed the major one in 1927. Since then, the Mississippi has flooded many times of course. Sometimes these are minor, other times less so. Sometimes, like now, they appear to be catastrophic.

Since we live in a world of scarce resources, communities cannot prepare for every disaster they might face through efforts to mitigate—building yet higher dikes in the case of the Mississippi, which many think is bad policy. When the disaster is big enough, the mitigation efforts, wall/dikes in New Orleans, earthen dikes along the Mississippi, reinforced structures elsewhere, will fail and the disaster consequences may be all the greater when they do.

It is at this point that a community’s real resilience is tested. Even if they cannot employ techniques/policies that mitigate against disaster, they can still plan their recovery. We are witnessing some of this resilience thinking in many communities along the Mississippi. Homeowners are not just evacuating, they are moving their furniture and belongings as well in anticipation of flood levels yet to come.

 That said, much rebuilding must take place after the flood recedes. This is easy to see. But how many communities have developed resilient practices around that? How many have precertified building contractors who will come in to help rebuild? The alternative is a backlog of filings and unnecessary delays in getting back to normal? One easy way to precertify is simply to recognize licensed contractors that come from communities with essentially the same building codes. As well, how many communities have thought about their permitting process, including staffing, and have anticipated being figurative flooded with permits to review? The alternative is to have yet another time-delaying process imposed on homeowners and builders.

Recovery from the floods will take a long time. How many communities have thought about critical staff that will experience dramatically increased workloads? They will be working long hours and under a great deal of stress. Have the communities planned for this since we know it will happen. Are they prepared to provide assistance for critical employee’s families—help with living arrangements, schooling and other life necessities?

Utilities will need to be restored. Electric companies are excellent examples of resilient thinking in that many have reciprocal agreements with other companies. Equipped workers will come from far and wide to help restore systems. But how many community water systems or gas systems have similar agreements?

The flooding comes at a bad time—toward the end of the school year. Have communities thought about perhaps extending schools into the summer so parents can attend to rebuilding? Or, perhaps having day-camp programs for those who need them?

Disasters always surprise us in that things happen that were not anticipated. However, many things can be predicted, and resilient thinking attends to these to make recovery as smooth and quick as possible.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Very Hidden Infrastructure: Social Capital

March 28th, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

Though I only moved to Charleston six weeks before Hurricane Hugo hit, the aftermath was remarkable in many ways. Despite the misery of no power, downed trees, blocked roads and widespread damage, many remember the first few days with a great deal of fondness. In my neighborhood, we had a few block parties. As people realized their freezer stocks were going to thaw, they drug out grills and gas stoves and cooked for their neighbors. Of course there was a sense of exhilaration that no one lost a loved one or was seriously injured. But the feeling of ‘togetherness’ persisted for some time and brings a smile even today.

In her book, “A Paradise Built in Hell,” Rebecca Solnit writes directly to this phenomenon through recorded chronicles and interviews around five major disasters—the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the 1917 munitions ship explosion in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina.

Though she is careful to say that a disaster is never something to be wished for, she explores the resilience of the human spirit in disaster recovery by suggesting that it is a time when many discover a new side of human nature—a giving, caring one built on our sense of community. This description is contrary to our usual disaster movies where many turn to rioting and looting. While this latter can occur, there are likely exponentially higher incidences of the former.

Solnit is of course exploring a dimension of life that we in the social sciences describe as “social capital.” Essentially, this is the glue the binds us together and how strong that glue is. Like invested money, social capital can grow or shrink, depending upon how communities evolve over time. A disaster is a time when social capital is tapped as a community resource.

Robert Putnam, in “Bowling Alone,” observes that, like our infrastructure, it may well be that our social capital is on a declining trajectory. Metaphorically, Putnam suggests that the decline in Friday evening bowling leagues signifies that we are less and less closely glued together in the specific geographic sense of community—which is always where a disaster hits. The impact of Putnam’s book was huge—and it is still hotly debated.

Some say we are just bound together differently, as in Internetted social networks. As I looked at these today—the obvious conclusion was that they may be “new” neighborhoods, but they remain virtual for all of the reality of the people who populate them.

Disaster strikes neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions, not networks. Networks are what we need to recover, and it is questionable in my mind whether those that are virtually glued together have as much disaster resilience as ones that are created in a neighborhood coffee shop or pub. I don’t question the glue; I just question its disaster resilience.

This raises the question of course of how we might go about rethinking our notion of social capital in connection with disasters. Solnit suggests that it is human nature to want to come together. In thinking about creating more resilient communities, how do we facilitate that in a way that helps communities better understand its vital role in recovery?

Arthur (Andy) Felts

The Unthinkable

March 24th, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

As I write this, it has been less than one week since the devastating tsunami moved the island that is Japan eight feet further west, killed thousands, and destroyed untold numbers of homes, business, and factories. As bad as that is, I have faith in the resilience of the Japanese people to recover.

I have less faith in what is potentially an unrecoverable disaster, a nuclear meltdown sufficient to breech a reactor core of one of the damaged plants and release radioactive clouds of steam that will contaminate the land for miles around. Recovery from that will be on a scale of centuries, if it occurs.

Of course Japan has experienced nuclear explosions before. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrendous in terms of deaths. Somewhere between 100,000 and 166,000 were killed in Hiroshima. However, ten years after Hiroshima was leveled, it reached its population level from just before the bomb was dropped. That is a statement on resilience.

The difference between the potential with the current situation is volume of radioactive material. The Hiroshima bomb contained a few kilograms and not all was consumed. Nuclear power plants have thousands of kilograms of fissionable material and so the potential for radioactive release on the same order. That, plus the purity (radioactivity) of the material we use in reactors today, is far better than in 1945.

With nuclear reactors as part of our nation’s infrastructure, it behooves us to ask what types of preventative maintenance is being done since that question is being raised about the Japanese ones.

Part of becoming more resilient is to ask communities to engage in risk analysis—essentially asking a simple question: “What is potentially at loss in the event of a disaster?” It is easy enough to create surge maps and calculate losses from a massive wave. More difficult to consider is the cascading event of reactor pumps failing afterwards.

Already, the threats posed by the failing Japanese reactors are sparking debates about the relative safety of nuclear power—at a time when more and more seemed to be turning a favorable eye to it as an alternative to fossil fuels. I take no position in the debate because I do not consider myself sufficiently knowledgeable. What I do know is that the land for miles around Chernobyl is still radioactive and will be so long after I, and my grandchildren are gone.

If that is a potential loss in the event of a disaster, then we need to make such choices with our eyes wide open and do our best to mitigate against failure. Resilient thinking demands it.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Water, Water Everywhere . . . And Not a Drop to Drink

March 8th, 2011 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

While it is ultimately difficult to prioritize segments of our infrastructures, the CARRI team has generally concluded that water is high on the list along with adequate power. Difficult to say which is more important since we know water systems need power to pump water. Hospitals can have emergency generators, but we know a lot less about how long they can go without water. We know as well that they consume very large quantities of it.

The recent cholera outbreak in Haiti has exposed twenty-first century youth to a problem as old as human communities—the need for clean water. It may come as a surprise to many, but it is widely held that the provision of safe, potable water is the single greatest contributor to our longer life spans.

There are many communities in the United States that have serious drinking water supply problems. Most know that the greater Los Angeles area is too dry to sustain its population and water must be piped in from a distance. Many other western cities have made the list of those facing water shortages. Closer to the east coast, Atlanta has now made the list. Doubtful that any would argue water shortage as an issue influencing a community’s ongoing resilience.

What may be less clear is the growing fragility of the water delivery system. Underground, out of sight, there are some very large man-made streams. Water mains in excess of 72 inches in size crisscross communities, having to endure extreme variations in temperature, pressure, and the constant shifting of the earth, including that created by cars on the surface.

The force of a large water main breaking is something to be reckoned with. It can toss cars like matchbook toys. It can flood basements in seconds. I can sweep people away with virtually no warning.

 Here is another fact probably not well known. Most all underground water lines leak—that is what eventually leads to a major break, and it makes sense when seen that way. A loss of 10 to 20 percent of the water pumped is considered ‘acceptable.’ But a sudden drop in pressure from a burst line can require extraordinary precautions to maintain sanitation.

 The American Waterworks Association tells us that a water main breaks every two minutes—for a total annual count of 300,000. The nation’s water system was mostly built in the 1950s and 60s—and is rapidly aging. Washington DC’s average pipe age is 77 years.

Needless to say, a community whose pipes do not hold water very well in normal times will probably experience even worse problems in the aftermath of a disaster. Water pipes are indeed, out of sight, and thus we don’t have to look at them as a part of our aging infrastructure. But we should.

Or are they really out sight? Aren’t they really readily visible when you walk in your kitchen and turn on the tap

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