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.

Warren Edwards

How would a CARRI community recover from a tornado?

May 5th, 2011 - Warren Edwards  

Earlier this week, a colleague e-mailed me and asked to send him some ideas on how I thought a Community and Regional Resilience Institute community using the  Community Resilience System would recover from a tornado.  I thought it made sense to give him a description of the environment within which the community would be conducting their tornado recovery.  This is how I think a CRS community would be positioned for response and long-term recovery:

A CARRI community would have assessed its vulnerabilities, catalogued its assets and determined which assets were most vulnerable, which could/should be restored first and identified the gaps for which outside resources would have to be requested well before the tornado. This would have been done by all parts of the community — individuals and families; local government; small and large employers.

A CARRI community would have a well planned and well rehearsed communications plan for getting information to all of its citizens based on a collaborative use of all the resources available to the community rather than just government.  The information provided by such a coordinated plan would be useful, relevant and trusted.

 A CARRI community would have well-established, trusted, community networks based on the full fabric of the community (government, private business, faith-based, associational) and those networks would have been proven through collaborative planning and continuous interactions before the catastrophic event.  The community would also have similar networks developed with other communities within its region.  The time to meet your neighbor (individual or community) is not post-disaster.

 A CARRI community would have a vision for a post-disaster community and a plan based on that vision.  The vision would be accepted by the community as a basis for action.  Because time is critical post-event, this vision and plan would help the community rapidly recover in a manner consistent with their long-term vision, goals and interests.

Warren Edwards

CRSI Quarterly Update: Community Resilience System

May 2nd, 2011 - Warren Edwards  

Coding the System: 

 After a year’s work by over 175 people representing the research world, the full spectrum of America’s communities and significant representatives from the private business sector, our developers are coding the software for the Community Resilience System (CRS) that we have envisioned from the beginning of this project.  Our challenge continues to be ensuring that the resulting system is highly flexible, simple, easy to use, and has robust embedded supporting resources.  The joint Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI) and Meridian Institute team supervising the software engineers works daily to create a web-enabled product that has an attractive and user friendly portal for client interface while testing each step for logic and adherence to the principle that the tool must be useful to the community’s experts without outside assistance.  This entire process is overseen by the Community Resilience System Initiative (CRSI) Steering Committee which continues to actively guide and direct the entire project. 

Building the Resource Base: 

The Community Resilience System is designed to allow communities to work systematically through a number of recommended or required actions tailored to the community’s needs that culminate in an actionable plan to increase resilience.  One of the most powerful attributes of the system is the inclusion of robust sets of supporting resources that accompany each recommended action.  The supporting resources are varied and specifically designed to support the action with which they are associated.  They may take the form of checklists, templates, examples of successful practices, guidance material or data sources.  Each action has several pertinent supporting resources. 

The CARRI team is working hard now to complete the compilation of those resources.  For all actions, we want to find the best resources available to meet the specific need.  In most cases, we have been able to find one or more existing resources that can be used to meet the action requirements.    In no case do we wish to re-invent or duplicate an existing, proven resource with anything original and untested.  In this way, the CRS acts as a robust vehicle to expand the reach of existing private sector and government programs.  Where resources do not exist or additional guidance or instructions are needed, the team is creating these resources to be tested early in the community pilot process. 

More about the pilots and CRSI report to come…

Warren Edwards

San Francisco Neighborhood Empowerment Network

April 14th, 2011 - Warren Edwards  

One of the primary ways that governments at all echelons create resilience is to empower its citizens to take charge of their own lives and build a safe and secure future for themselves and their families.  The San Francisco Neighborhood Empowerment Network seeks to do just that.  The Neighborhood Empowerment Network, or NEN, is a coalition of residents, community, faith-based, academic institutions and government agencies whose goal is to empower neighborhoods to become cleaner, greener, healthier and more inclusive places to live and work.  To me this certainly exemplifies the CARRI idea of bringing together the “full fabric” of the community and greater resilience for a community with these goals seems highly probable. 

Led by an energetic Daniel Homsey from city hall, this city government sponsored program includes a dynamic set of strategic partnerships among government agencies, non-profits and community organizations, a NEN University to engage the academic community, an awards program, a storytelling arm and robust use of all social media.  Its projects are organized and managed by the neighborhoods themselves, based on the core needs identified by the residents, and facilitated and encouraged by the city. 

You can find everything about the San Francisco Neighborhood Empowerment Network at www.empowersf.org.  The site is well worth your visit.

One of the things we at CARRI want to do is to highlight ways that communities are organizing themselves to become more resilient.  If you have a example, contact us and let’s get these great stories told.

Warren Edwards

Piloting the System

April 5th, 2011 - Warren Edwards  

Less than a year ago, CARRI set a goal of creating a practical, usable Community Resilience System (CRS) based on evidence gleaned from academic research and practical experience.  The software that will power that system is being written now.  We are on track to have a web-enabled prototype system ready to be tested by mid-summer.

This has been a team effort combining the work of over 175 participants – researchers from numerous disciplines and community leaders representing all aspects of community life drawn from across the nation.  We believe that we have developed a good, functional prototype – a system of processes and resources that any community can use to increase its resilience across a wide spectrum of disturbances.  But – and it is a big but – we won’t know if what we have cooperatively created has value until we get it in the hands of real communities and watch it operate.  For that, we need a group of pilot communities that will agree to work with CARRI and the CRS to help us understand what works, what doesn’t work, and what needs further development.

CARRI is in the process of actively recruiting 5 to 10 CRS Pilot Communities.  While we would like for this set of communities to include the diversity that will allow us to understand how the system operates in a variety of settings – different sizes, different economies, different threats, and different geographies – the most important factor in pilot community selection is commitment.  The communities that undertake this journey to resilience must have a dedicated core of committed leaders who understand that this is a lengthy trip – a long-term commitment to making their community different, better, more resilient.

The CARRI team, working through the Community Resilience System Initiative Steering Committee, has identified a number of potential pilot communities.  Other communities have come forward and indicated a desire to participate in the pilot program.  Between now and mid-summer, we will carefully work with each candidate community to ensure mutual understanding of the tasks, the pitfalls, and the rewards.  Simultaneously, we are working to identify the resources required to undertake these pilots and anticipating a full pilot community launch by the end of the summer.

We know that the system is neither as complete nor as robust as we hope that it will eventually become.  These pilots are designed both to test the system and allow conclusions about its usefulness, practicality, and effectiveness; they will also help us identify additional supporting resources and processes that will make the system more powerful.  In this sense, these pilots are both tests and creative development opportunities.

While we have identified several communities and have begun discussions we have made no final selections.  Communities who may be interested in becoming pilots should contact CARRI and let us know of your interest. 

We at CARRI, acting as the Community Resilience System Initiative Steering Committee’s representatives, are excited about the prospect of taking the work of so many dedicated initiative participants and watching it operate in US communities.  We think that these pioneer resilient communities will set an example and the standard for building a truly resilient America anchored in resilient American communities.

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.

John Plodinec

Another Take on our Nation’s Infrastructure Crisis

March 22nd, 2011 - John Plodinec  

The excellent recent postings by my colleague Andy Felts are doing a fine job of pointing out the crisis our country is facing with its infrastructure.  It is a serious problem compounded by our federal deficit, and the very real lack of resources being faced by many of our cities, counties and states. 

The Chinese ideogram for “crisis” is made up of two characters – “danger” and “opportunity.”  One facet of resilience is finding the opportunity in a crisis.  When we talk about the state of our infrastructure we tend to stress the dangers – especially when talking to politicians.  We will eventually fix our infrastructure.  We may do it in a deliberate and planned manner, or in response to more incidents like the bridge collapse in Minneapolis.  In other words, on either a “pay me now,” or a “pay me [more] later” basis. 

But if we proceed wisely to repair and rebuild our infrastructure, I see real opportunities that are too often overlooked.  Here in the US, by using better materials, building in better locations, using sensors to allow us to know the conditional status of our infrastructure at almost any point in time, we can again make our infrastructure a competitive advantage.  Investments like these will reduce maintenance costs, provide greater safety, and allow us an extended life for what we rebuild.

And the use of these same new technologies can also spark real economic growth from foreign buyers. The infrastructure in much of the newer developed world (esp. what Thomas Barnett calls the “new core” – Brazil, India…) though younger than ours – is built on the American model, with American ideas.  If we can push to make good investments and solve our own problems soon, the solutions we develop will provide economic opportunities for us as countries in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere begin to face the same challenges we are now.  American firms can once more be in the forefront of rebuilding the infrastructure of the world.

Certainly we should stress the dangers when talking about our infrastructure crisis.  However, we should also stress the opportunities inherent in dealing with those dangers.  We should not allow our current fiscal mess to prevent us from investing in ourselves in ways that will provide a huge return on that investment.

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