Cities and Resources

August 24th, 2010 - Arthur (Andy) Felts

Another breakout track at the July Hazards Conference in Boulder focused on Environmental Change and Patterns of Vulnerability. I wrote a bit about that in my first blog on the meeting.

In that blog I mentioned that Dr. Peter Wenger from NSF participated on the panel and talked about Dr. Peter Berke was researching the “new urbanism” and its impact on community resilience.

The panel, “The Maddening of Crowding: Urban Vulnerability,” was interesting in and of itself. It focused mostly on what were called “megacities,” those with 19 million plus residents. Wenger talked about the most vulnerable being “SINs”—Small Island Nations and the need for a global platform to look at vulnerability. He also referred to cities as having large “concentrations of resources.”

Dr. William Siembieda from California Polytechnic Institute—San Luis Obispo, echoed that comment. Only he also pointed out that these cities contain large poor populations and both the need to increase income for these as well as form international “insurance pools” where they can ensure the leverage of these resources.

All of this echoed for me Lawrence J. Vale and Thomas J. Campella’s edited volume, The resilient city: How modern cities recover from disaster (Oxford University Press, 2005). I highly recommend the book. Various authors in that book talk about how major cities are located in important places and there was a commitment to building them in the first place. That suggests that we don’t need to look exclusively at megacities, we could include a whole lot more on the list. New York City of course, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and Charlotte all have a lot of resources at their disposal.

This predisposes (pun intended) most all big cities to be more resilient. While researching for a paper I’m just finishing up, I was quite surprised to discover that Hiroshima’s population returned to pre-atomic bomb levels by 1955. Undoubtedly, this is a good example of resilience, acknowledging that Japan is a small nation and enjoys cultural homogeneity.

The resilient city is an excellent read. It recounts, among other things, how Berlin was rebuilt after WWII, San Francisco recovered from the 1906 combined fire and earthquake, and Washington, DC after it was nearly destroyed by the British Invasion of 1814.

In all these cases, and many more, there was a huge will among the cities leadership (public and private) to restore and recover. In fact, Vale suggests it is an axiom of resilience that it is a test of the very legitimacy of those leaders. They have to inspire people and leverage resources to go on.

It was the fact that these cities had large numbers of differently skilled leaders that were able to leverage the resources they possessed.

“Large” is a relative number—what was large in 1500 AD might be small now—but I’d opine that in today’s world, most cities with 5 million or more residents possess that inherent resiliency that comes from making themselves unique and creating a sense of place and capitalizing on their economic engines. There are exceptions, of course. Pompeii was in no position to recover after Mount Vesuvius erupted.

It may come down to simply a large population, poor or otherwise that points to their inherent resilience. I’d say not. One of my favorite quotes from Charleston’s Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. is that city “places”—parks, promenades, cultural venues, sports arenas, boulevards—are places where “memories are made.” People seek to preserve those.

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Resilience – additional feedback from the July 2010 Annual Hazards Workshop

August 13th, 2010 - Arthur (Andy) Felts

In my last blog, I commented on the Hazards Workshop in July. There is more news. One of the highlighted track plenary sessions —“Resilience—What’s That?”— featured our own Dr. Tom Wilbanks. It was moderated by, as Tom designated her, “the legendary” Clare Rubin. Clare has been doing recovery studies for longer than anyone I know. Dr. Michael Dunaway from DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate participated as did Dr. Lori Dengler from Humbolt State University.

The panel was standing room only. The discussion was in keeping with the workshop and there were two practitioner and two more academic discussions. I should tell you here that the panelists don’t get to use PowerPoint and don’t give formal papers. They give a brief presentation and then it goes open the audience, a truly refreshing way to bring academics and practitioners together for discussion.

Tom did a good job of summarizing what CARRI has been about all along, seeing mitigating, preparing and recovery from disasters as a continuous process that is interlinked. He acknowledged that defining resilience was still a work in progress.

Clare’s approach was interesting and refreshing. Though she has long been recognized for her research in disaster recovery she spoke from her position as an elected official in Virginia. In her standard straightforward fashion she said, more or less, ‘I’m not sure what resilience is, but people are beginning to talk about it and I think means I need to find out more.’

Dunaway offered some interesting comments, emphasizing resilience and the need to find funding for building our national deterrent capacity to meet the challenges we are facing. He argued we need to change our culture in the face of increasing populations and multiple threats. He saw becoming a more resilient nation as the path to accomplishing that. He concluded with a very nice quote that defined resilience to him—given to him by a private sector friend. Resilience, means finding a way to function normally in abnormal like conditions. As good start for thinking that everything is, in fact, getting back to normal (or a new normal).

A tsunami researcher, Dengler, echoed Clare’s statement and talked a bit about being in Malaysia after the huge tsunami a few years back.

One interesting thing she said was that one island tribe used the term “smong” when asked what happened. She actually found out that that meant a lot of things in one word when time was critical. Smong means “when the ground shakes and there’s a lot of things jumbled up and the sea starts to recede and you see gurgling out where the water is, head for the high ground.” So, this one tribe did just that, gathered up the kids, put grandmas in carts and trucked up about 90 meters–exactly where Dengler would have recommended they go–and they all survived. Not only did they do that, but they also had stockpiled critical materials, lumber, food, etc., up out of harm’s way as well. When was the last time a large tsunami hit the village? 1917.

Another village escaped the tsunami, but evacuated anyway. She asked the chief if they were disappointed to have gone through all the effort of getting everyone to high ground and waiting it out. He replied no, “Each time offers us a chance to practice.”

Dengler offered that she wasn’t sure, but thought those were two pretty good examples of resilience. I agree.

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Wall Street, Main Street and Resilience

July 7th, 2010 - John Plodinec

Last evening I read a fascinating essay by Michael Lewitt called “The Death of Capital” (based on a recently published book of the same title). Lewitt shows how our financial system (including the federal government) has become an instrument that does not encourage growth of our economy but rather rewards speculation. The Wall Street bailouts, and their use to aggrandize a few at the expense of all of the American taxpayers, are an example of how we have privatized gain while socializing loss. The credibility of the security rating services has been dealt a severe blow as we have seen how they failed in their primary mission – to accurately inform investors about the risk of investments. As a result, there is widespread mistrust throughout the financial system.

When disaster strikes, businesses can’t rebuild without financial resources; for most that means credit. The mistrust that has become endemic in our financial system has upped the ante for businesses seeking credit. More information is needed; more security is needed; but less credit is available. The burden of proof of creditworthiness has almost gone beyond the reach of many small businesses.

Earlier in the day I had a phone call from a friend in Nashville. He told me about a vet there who had nearly been swept away twice while trying to save the animals in her care. As the owner of a small business, she is desperately trying to recover and rebuild after the flooding that occurred (see the photograph below). She is discovering what too many have found before – there is little help for Main Street when disaster occurs. There is a smattering of private credit available for recovery. The federal Small Business Administration offers low interest rate, long-term loans, but the already high burden of proof of creditworthiness becomes almost unreachable for disaster-crippled businesses. And then there is … nothing else for our small businesses.

In propping up those “Too Big to Fail,” we seem to have forgotten the real engines of our economic growth and vitality – the tens of thousands of small businesses across the country. As we strive to make our communities and our country more resilient, we need to recognize that our small businesses are a crucial part of our communities and that they deserve special attention. I don’t have an answer but I do know that without one, our efforts to make our communities more resilient will fail.

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Successful and Best Practices

June 29th, 2010 - Arthur (Andy) Felts

Most are probably familiar with the maxims, “He who hesitates is lost,” or “seize the day.” It makes intuitive sense; don’t miss an opportunity. But how are we to reconcile that with “Look before you leap?” It makes intuitive sense as well but is certainly in disagreement with the former. Don’t rush in, take your time.

Such is the state today, I believe, with what are called “best practices.” They have proliferated in many practical areas to the point where you can find many that are in direct contradiction to each other.

As I write this, I have been watching from time to time the suggestions of different people who have thought of ways to clean up the oil spill. Some say spray it with dry ice, some say use pom-poms to soak it up, some say use hay or straw, and some say we should use more and different chemical dispersants while others suggest these may cause even more environmental harm. All may claim to be a best practices currently available, but at some point, they proliferate to the point such that they are just different ways of dealing with a problem or issue and may actually be at odds with each other.

To diverge just a bit, we can say the same about what we call a healthy diet. At one time dieticians and doctors suggested eating a lot of organ meats because they were rich in minerals. Then not, because they are also filters of bad stuff. Margarine was better for us than butter, but then we discovered trans-fats. Though long accepted as fact, there is absolutely no basis in scientific fact that we should drink eight glasses of water a day. Now, we are told there is some evidence that red meat may not be so bad, rather it is cured meats like bacon that cause harm.

Such are best practices—they reflect what we know about the world today in both practice and science. It pushes the point, but at one time the best practice to cure a very feverish patient was to bleed them to rid the body of bad “humors.” Think about that.

As a result of this, as we proceed with the CARRI work of helping communities recovery efficiently, effectively, and fairly from disasters, we changed our terminology to “successful practices” rather than “best.” When we discover policies or programs that have worked in the past we will label them as successful. The admonishment here is clear. Caveat emptor.

This is an admonishment to all that we should think of disaster recovery as a continuously unfolding body of knowledge where what we thought best today may not be tomorrow. Second, and more importantly, we should realize that successful practices are those that have shown results in particular circumstances. Since circumstances can vary—sometimes dramatically—then those who are looking for solutions should consider if their circumstances fit those where a practice was successful.

CARRI has steadfastly maintained that community resilience is created by planning to recover. But once a plan is in place, it should not be put on a shelf someplace and dusted off when a disaster hits. Rather, it should be continuously reviewed and updated to reflect changes in the community and in what we know now rather than then. It also assumes that what we thought was best might not have been that at all.

We may never find the one best way to do something, but we can and should continuously strive to do so—and keep in mind that what we know now are some things that have been successful in other communities. These should be adopted with thorough consideration.

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The Art of War on Leadership

June 22nd, 2010 - John Plodinec

“Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and sternness.” – Sun Tzu

As I discussed in a previous posting, The Art of War – the two millenium old classic Chinese treatise on war – has great relevance to community resilience. In this post, I’d like to discuss how SunTzu’s observations about leadership can be applied to communities.

According to Sun Tzu, a successful leader must have the five traits listed above. In the context of a community and its resilience, these traits might be better described as follows.

Intelligence. Intelligence in leadership means that the leader knows how to clearly identify an objective, communicate it, and then plan to achieve it. This implies that an intelligent community leader recognizes when the community must adapt to changing circumstances. The intelligent leader is able to articulate that need and initiate the planning effort needed to affect change.

Trustworthiness. A trustworthy leader is recognized by the community as a person of integrity. Thus, the community believes that a trustworthy leader will carry out promised actions, and will provide support to the rest of the community to implement action plans. Such a leader is thus able to communicate more effectively to the larger community, because even unpopular messages are more likely to be heard.

Humaneness. An effective leader cares about the community, and that caring is manifested in actions. The community feels that a humane leader “feels their pain,” and therefore are more likely to follow where the leader is going. This recognized innate humanity of the leader is especially important when trying to reconcile different factions within the community.

Courage. A leader must have the courage to persevere even when obstacles are encountered. In essence, the courage needed by an effective leader is born of a certain innate confidence in one’s own integrity – the leader believes the community is on the right course.

Sternness. By “sternness,” Sun Tzu means a sort of rigorous fairness. Rewards and punishments are strictly based on actions, and not the person acting. Ultimately, this sternness is the result of a sort of self-discipline in which the leader may have favorites but does not favor them.

The transformation of Charlotte, NC, from a textiles to a financial center illustrates the importance of several of these leadership traits. Up until the 1970’s, Charlotte had been one of the leading centers for the textile industry in the country. The heads of two of the largest banks in North Carolina and the head of Duke Power recognized that the demise of that industry threatened Charlotte’s vitality. All three were a part of the community, and passionately cared about Charlotte’s future. Acting largely independently of city and county governments, these three formed an organization aimed at helping Charlotte to adapt to these changing conditions. As plans were developed, these three spearheaded the transformational effort. They helped rebuild some of the poorest sections of the city (encountering opposition because many of these were predominately black), making what had been almost slums into desirable neighborhoods. In spite of criticism and carping, these three eventually transformed Charlotte into what has become the second largest financial center in the country.

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Symbolism and Resilience

June 10th, 2010 - Arthur (Andy) Felts

I’ve been busy of late writing a paper for CARRI that explains our ideas about a Community Recovery System (CRS) and a Common Framework (CF) to wider academic and practitioner audiences. As I have done so, I have once again been struck by what a linear process writing is.

We at CARRI see disaster recovery as following a logic, but one that also shows the interconnectedness of a community. Though post-disaster infrastructure recovery is important early on, even then the gears of a community’s economic and social system are engaging. It is important to understand this because any recovery plan that does not will not be as effective.

As I was struggling with a way of explaining the need to pay attention to social factors, early on I thought about a community’s social capital. Social capital is one form of glue that holds a community together during normal functioning. It literally, to use our CRS and CF terminology, helps create a sense of community. And it gets stressed, stretched, and challenged during and following a disaster.

I went back and searched for a quote I had highlighted in Lawrence J. Vale and Thomas J. Campanella’s edited volume, The Resilient City: How modern cities recover from disaster, written in 2005. There, Vale wrote:

“….[R]ecovery occurs network by network, district by district, not just building by building; it is about reconstructing myriad social relationships embedded in schools, workplaces, childcare arrangements, shops, places of worship, and places of play and recreation.” (Vale, 2005)

My mind immediately seized upon a familiar image—that of the tattered American flag that someone searching amidst the World Trade Center rubble attached to the highest girder sticking in the ground. Even before the first truckload of debris was carted away, putting up a symbol that the city would use to endure its disaster. Who can forget the image of sheer compassion on the fireman’s face as he tenderly carried a young child away from the rubble that had once been the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City? These are the types of symbols that help a community rebuild.

Vale writes about other rituals that matter–the ceremony that was held before the last truck carted the last load of debris from ground zero where the towers once stood. In his words, “Remembrance drives resilience.”

The significance of this should not be overlooked. Even in the early stages of disaster recovery, a community should attend to matters of social capital just as it works to repair roads and bridges. Of course, the primary form this takes is communication from community leaders that clearly understand this is both at stake and an issue.

Social functioning may rest atop adequate infrastructure and a healthy economic system, but that does not make it any less important in the meshing of gears that create community resilience.

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Three things I think I think – about resilience

April 19th, 2010 - John Plodinec

With apologies to Peter King of Sports Illustrated …

I think I think I’m starting to hate resilience. Not the concept, but the word. Like sustainability, it has been adopted as a fad by so many, that it is losing its meaning. In CARRI, we are focused on the concept of being able to bounce back better, but that injects a tincture of resistance into our definition that sometimes confuses people.

I think I think that our ballooning federal deficit is the single greatest threat to the resilience of our communities. From 2005 to today, the federal government has lost one “Katrina” – the federal government’s payments to service our national debt have increased by slightly more than it cost to recover from Katrina. Simply put, communities will have to develop creative ways to find and use the resources they will need to recover from a disaster. This is one area where I hope that CARRI’s Community Resilience System Initiative will have a great impact.

I think I think that we as a nation need to put a spotlight on rural America. In a very real sense, our rural communities are under siege. Their ability to respond to disasters is at its lowest ebb since the Depression. Many are struggling to reinvent themselves because they have lost their original reason for being; others are just holding on trying to stave off their inevitable death. But if some of the predicted impacts of global warming are real, it is likely to eradicate a large number of rural communities across the country. Rural citizens most likely will go to coastal areas that will already be coping with their own impacts from climate change. Ideally, we’d like to see the migration go the other way – away from coastal communities. We need to figure out how to help rural communities become more resilient – in this case, able to recover quickly from acute disasters and respond to the chronic problem of reinventing themselves in a changing world.

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

April 14th, 2010 - Arthur (Andy) Felts

This is a continuation of last week’s blog on Managing for Long-Term Recovery in the Aftermath of a Disaster, Charles J. Alesch, Lucy A. Arendt, and James N. Holly (Public Entity Research Institute, 2009). This is, as I said, a book I heartily recommend.

The methodology used in the book was qualitative interviewing. They picked several communities that had endured disasters and in varying stages of recovery and simply asked people who were there when the disaster hit, “What happened?”

In listening to people tell their story, the authors gradually arrived at some conclusions put forth in the book. One particularly insightful one was that even as infrastructure was being restored and steps taken toward recovery, the disaster’s effects continued on for several years.

Though undoubtedly communities need some outside support in recovering from major disasters, they note they could find no correlation between the amount of support and how effective the community was at recovering. Some got a lot of support and still appeared to be failing and some not so much and were succeeding.

The last chapters of the book are written from a public practitioner’s perspective. The authors note the incredible strain that disasters put on public workers. Not infrequently, city managers resign after working long days for months on end. This is one more reminder that communities that do not plan to take care of their employees and their families are neglecting a crucial resource.

Recovering from disasters can offer a community an opportunity to undo past mistakes. Many communities tried to do just that in focusing on revitalizing their decaying downtowns as a recovery strategy. Not surprisingly, they didn’t succeed. Even after facades were spiffed up, streets landscaped, and inviting parks built, most in the community continued to prefer the mall on the edge of town.

I am reminded of the many failed efforts that cities undertook to ‘mall-ize’ their downtowns in the 1960s and 70s. Despite spending massive amounts of money and building them, the people did not come.

We at CARRI are always reminding ourselves that the trajectory of a community before a disaster will be exacerbated post-disaster. The point here is a simple one. The decayed, vacant, unappealing downtowns didn’t happen overnight. Their development was an incremental process that occurred building-by-building, street-by-street, and tenant-by-tenant over several years. Attempting to change direction with all of that momentum in the wrong direction is not, as Alesch et. al. observe, good policy.

Restoring, rehabilitating a vacant downtown should be done through careful planning with community involvement and likely will take a long time. While recovery planning can undo some mistakes, it cannot expect to reweave the fabric of the community in a completely new pattern.

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Psychological Effects of Disaster

March 29th, 2010 - Arthur (Andy) Felts

Thinking holistically about the impact of disasters means we need to be willing to drill down from the macro to the individual level.

At the macro level, infrastructure may be compromised or destroyed and that creates one set of problems. If a bridge is lost, an entire community may be isolated.

On an intermediate level, discreet neighborhoods left isolated by the loss of the bridge may be impacted in terms of overall survival and recovery. No one wants to return to a place where they cannot access health care, get groceries, or buy gasoline.

If we go down to the individual level, then we face a new set of challenges. Even if the bridge is rebuilt, the grocery store opens back up, and the gas station is pumping gas, we are still left with considerations about the impacts on individuals and their families.

If you will here permit me to speak from experience, I can tell you that, after experiencing Hugo in 1989 for many years afterward, I had a very sinking feeling when June 1^st rolled around and we faced a new hurricane season. Every day I felt a sense of dread as I checked the National Hurricane Center’s website to see tropical activity (something I do even now). I saw similar effects on many friends. Instead of being thrilled with summertime and vacations, we all took on a somber look. Some finally decided to move away from Charleston.

Experts tell us that many people suffer various psychological effects from disasters. Many exhibit mild to severe signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Depression is another observed effect.

Most of us are familiar with the effects of depression—if we watch TV at all, then we likely see one or two ads for drugs used to treat it. Though we commonly associate PTSD with soldiers who suffer the horrors of combat, the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs excellent website on PTSD (http://www.ptsd.va.gov/index.asp) includes disaster victims among those who suffer from it. It lists no less that twenty-four common effects ranging from emotional to severe physical reactions, including violent behavior.

Post-disaster, stress levels for those with jobs and families to support certainly will increase dramatically. They need to work, perhaps repair their homes or adapt to temporary housing, tend to their children (who are another psychological issue in and of themselves) and try to be an anchor. Children will not only be affected by this, but also suffer their own problems. Older people may feel helpless and endure increased isolation.

To an extent, we can predict those more likely to suffer from PTSD. They would be those that had emotional or psychological problems before the disaster or loss a loved one—even a family pet.

It is not hard to imagine the effects PTSD and depression can have. Jobs may be lost. Drug and alcohol abuse likely will increase. In short, the post-disaster effects of depression and PTSD will ripple upward from the individual to the community.

There is no question this affects community resilience. Experts are beginning to look at strategies to reduce the psychological consequences of disasters. Some are as simple as encouraging people to talk to others about the disaster. Some suggest we provide more immediate post-disaster counseling. We need better data. But we also know a lot.

Planning to recover means not just ensuring that the infrastructure is restored and economic recovery is set in motion. It means we also must think about keeping individuals whole as well.

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The Art of Resilience

March 23rd, 2010 - John Plodinec

Whenever I start a new endeavor, I try to assess it in terms of the factors set down over two millenia ago by Sun Tzu in his great work, The Art of War. According to Sun Tzu, successful generals assess their strategic situation in terms of the weather, the terrain, the leadership, the discipline and the Way. Communities can become more resilient if they assess themselves using the same five factors.

When a community assesses itself in terms of the weather, it shouldn’t literally think only of natural disasters, but rather consider all of the storms that swirl around it, including pandemics, economic disasters, and even civil chaos (think of the riots in the ‘60s). Each of these brings its own challenges. The resilient community anticipates crises, and objectively determines what the consequences might be.

A community’s terrain is not only its geography but also its internal terrain – its networks that actually perform the actions needed by the community. A resilient community understands that just as different neighborhoods may be affected and respond to crises in different ways because of their geography, so, too, different parts of its networks may respond in very different manners to a crisis. Thus, in assessing its terrain, the resilient community recognizes its strengths and weaknesses, and realizes that disasters are likely to magnify its weaknesses, while reducing its strengths.

A resilient community recognizes that its leadership goes beyond government, and is most often a complex network of public and private partners. Time compounds this complexity: the attributes of successful leadership during the response to a disaster (e.g., heroism) have to evolve to the patient perseverance of a saint as the community recovers and redevelops itself. Indeed, the community’s “decisions” made during recovery often will be the sum of hundreds or even thousands of individual decisions made by those in the community.

Resilient communities will exert discipline by planning for disasters, and by practicing those plans. Those plans will identify the human, physical and fiscal resources needed, and where they will come from. Through practice, these plans are refined and revised. Communities seeking to become more resilient will also invest to reduce their vulnerabilities.

The Way is at once the most difficult of these factors to grasp, but likely the most important. The Way is a complex compounding of vision, communication, and trust that provides a signpost to any member of the community in reaching decisions. The resilient community strives to achieve a coherence – a moral accord – an agreement – a shared vision across the entire community about what the community should be. If a community has a recovery plan or – better yet – a strategic plan, it can inform those hundreds or thousands of individual decisions made during recovery so that the overall outcome is positive. Thus, it is useful for communities to develop recovery plans before disasters, to lay out the general principles by which all in the community will act.

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