Arthur (Andy) Felts

Of Boiling Frogs, Disasters and Chronic Disasters

June 16th, 2010 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth made a large point of the boiling frog theory. You put a frog in a pot of boiling water and it will jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of room temperature water and slowly raise the heat, the frog won’t notice the rising temperature. Before long, it will die.

Gore (and others) have used this story to illustrate climate change. Metaphorical, or better, mythically (since it does not appear to be true), I suppose it works.  Climate change is analogous to slowly heated water, and we won’t notice until it is too late. Problem is, we already have noticed.

The illustration is, of course, fraught with inconsistencies. First, we have facts relating to boiling water and frogs. Researchers are pretty uniform in saying if you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out if it can or die from the immediate scalding. We can accurately call that an “acute disaster.” So far we agree with Al.

Contrary to popular assumptions, when placed in a pot of water that is slowly heated, the frog will most likely get uncomfortable and jump out. That is best labeled as “chronic disaster”—one that unfolds in slow motion, so to speak. Though in the end, the summative impacts of a chronic disaster may equal those of a major disaster, they just don’t all happen at once.

Climate change (if you believe in it—and I do, by the way) can best be described as a chronic disaster.

I live on a lot that has a salt marsh in the rear—eight feet out my back door. My lot is eight feet above sea level. Over some period of time, I could, I suppose own beachfront property if some sea-level rise predictions are correct and if I am alive. Alternatively, I could have deep-water access and a lot that is (by today’s standards at least) worth considerably more than it is now. I write this because I’ll have ample time to adapt and make any of myriad decisions to deal with rising water.  

In thinking about the slow devolutions of chronic disasters, they occur in a way that is much akin to allowing me to make the decision to put up hurricane shutters in the midst of one.

Certainly the CARRI model of disaster and recovery can apply to chronic disasters. But should it and if it should, how? We can think about it, because nothing is pressing.

There are a couple of things we should focus on as we consider this question.

The first is whether or not a chronic disaster is one that suggests a community will be sustainable over time. In this sense, chronic disasters can result in a persistent downward trajectory of community functioning. In the case of climate change and sea level rise, salt water may make incursions into drinking water sources, beaches lost as recreation areas, and so on. In this sense, a community enduring a chronic disaster becomes less and less resilient and might not be able to resist even a minor perturbation as it slips downward.

The second issue is adaptation. Likely many communities will elect to build dikes or begin an incremental retreat from the shoreline as the sea levels rise. This would be akin to introducing a new species to combat a non-native invasive one.

Economic disasters are often chronic. One industry leaves, then another, and then another. Slowly, incrementally, the community’s economy crumbles. However, the warning signs are there in multiple forms. Higher joblessness, declining home values, higher crime and so on are all signs. Think Detroit. At some point, communities may breach the realm of sustainability and become entirely different than what they were, if anything at all. That is why my good colleague, John Plodinec says we need a Common Framework, now! It would allow us to see the oncoming freight train in an objective fashion.

The CARRI model can certainly assist a community in recognizing it is on a downward trajectory. We at CARRI have to decide whether the recovery model we have created “fits” chronic disasters that progressively deplete a community’s resources over an extended period of time. In the case of a community that is unsustainable, thinking out loud again and speaking for myself and not the CARRI team, I do not think it does because adaptation is one thing and unsustainability is another.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Thinking the Unthinkable

May 12th, 2010 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

Today I am “thinking out loud” as I watch, read, and listen to what is happening on the Gulf Coast – I am really concerned about what is happening there, and I thank you for listening as I share my thoughts and note these are my thoughts and not necessarily those of the CARRI Team.  A couple of years ago, Time magazine reporter Amanda Ripley published a book titled The Unthinkable: Who survives when disaster strikes and why. The book recounts individual acts of heroism in response to disasters and what bluntly must be described as incredible acts of naïveté at best and stupidity at worst. It is simplistic, but accurate, to say that those who survive disasters think ahead and those who do not, don’t.

Of course it is human nature to resist thinking about disasters, unthinkable or otherwise. We will never know why some people try to carry their luggage off a burning plane, why someone heads for their attic with no way out during a severe flood or why some thought up was the best way to get out of the burning World Trade Center.

CARRI is about encouraging communities to think about known possible threats that have a reasonable possibility of occurring. Addressing these through mitigation, preparation, response and planning to recover makes common sense.

But CARRI is also encouraging communities to think about the unthinkable where the consequences of a disaster can be dramatic in scale. The way we have been doing this is developing a Common Framework that asks communities to look at events, no matter how remote, where the potential loss is enormous. In doing this, they may decide that at least some preparation or mitigation – however modest – might be appropriate.

If we are to believe what we read these days, the unthinkable has occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. The possibilities of an oil rig exploding, collapsing and sinking one mile into the ocean, and leaving an open, gushing stream of oil were so remote and fail-safed enough we were not to worry.

However it appears a perfect storm of events did occur to make that unthinkable a reality. Given that reality, we now realize that the human/ecosystem damage could be so vast that it might have been worthwhile to construct a simple thing like a containment dome and perhaps even another one or two strategies in advance. I’m not privy to the BP boardroom, but I’m betting that they wish they did, given the costs they are facing in retribution and cleanup.

It is ironic that the unthinkable should have been because twenty-one years ago an oil spill in Alaska coated 1,300 miles of Prince William Sound. It was another perfect storm. A tired Captain turned the ship over to a tired crewman with icebergs in the outer shipping lane, forcing the ship to sail an inner lane. Add to that the technology was not operating that would have alerted the crew to the rocks that the Exxon Valdez encountered. 

Ripley writes about this at the individual level. Even though we all know that being a passenger on a crashed plane is extremely remote, those who do survive report that they actually listen to the flight attendant’s instructions and identify the nearest exit. Or those that head to the attic in a flood take an axe with them.

As they become more resilient, communities should move from thinking about the thinkable and the probable to the unthinkable where the loss could be very high.

Arthur (Andy) Felts

Reinforcing the Need for a Common Framework

March 22nd, 2010 - Arthur (Andy) Felts  

Several times in these CARRI blogs, Warren Edwards has reinforced that CARRI is about planning to recover. In recent blogs, Dr. John Plodinec has argued several reasons why we need a common framework—perhaps more precisely described as a national community resilience system—to build communities more resistant to disasters. I’d like to add an additional note to that discussion that reinforces and links these two ideas explicitly.

We live our lives in a way that is analogous to facing backwards in a boat that is floating down a river. The maxim is that our hindsight is 20-20—meaning that we know after things happen much of why they happened. We will never see the future, but we can anticipate and prepare, making use of applied research and best practices. That, in two words, is applied theory and that is the intent behind the community resilience system.

We know that communities with fewer resources have a harder time recovering from disasters. While a community resilience system won’t necessarily augment resources per se, it does point at ways that scarce resources can be used more effectively. In this sense, it is a preparatory tool that can help communities create more resilience.

We know that businesses, large and small, can better weather a disaster and recover if they have business continuity plans. A community resilience system both predicts that and provides ways of measuring how effectively a community is promoting business continuity planning and thus predict their degree of resilience.

One thing that everyone agrees on is that all disasters are, ultimately, social phenomena. In the end, no one would care much if a flood, hurricane, bomb, tornado, or earthquake destroyed a baseball park if there were no one around to go there and watch games. That is the major reason we believe there should be a common resilience system that can be applied to any disaster. In that sense, the system would provide each community a lens to look at potential areas of loss and thus direct their attention to areas where they, specifically, should plan to recover.

So, to return to one of Dr. Plodinec’s assertions about the need for a system now, our research has led us to conclude that communities often have unrealistic expectations about federal aid after a disaster. This, in itself, is a negative indicator. Developing a system of community resilience will work to teach communities to be more self-sufficient and strategic.

John Plodinec

Unrealistic Expectations

March 5th, 2010 - John Plodinec  

In a previous posting, I pointed out that the new reality of constrained resources created by the Great Recession makes the need for a community resilience framework more pressing than ever before. In this post, I’ll discuss another major reason a community resilience framework is needed now: the unrealistic expectations that have resulted from recent disasters.

In the aftermath of 9/11, and especially after Hurricane Katrina, a large portion of the populace seems to believe that the federal government should and can be the “White Knight” that charges in after a disaster and returns the community to normalcy. This belief has been reinforced by recent federal bailouts to financial institutions and automakers, and mirrors some of the rhetoric surrounding the health care debate.

Many current plans for emergency response and recovery reflect other facets of the same problem. For example, too many plans expect that the community’s behavior will conform to directives from the community’s leaders. And yet opinion polls in several locales have shown that large portions of the populace in hurricane-prone areas say they won’t leave no matter what they are told. read the entire article >

John Plodinec

Impacts of the Great Recession on Communities

February 5th, 2010 - John Plodinec  

In previous postings, I’ve tried to present trends that pointed to the need for a community resilience framework. These trends (growing complexity of communities, the new spectrum of hazards facing communities, and the accelerating rate of change) by themselves make the case for the need for a community resilience framework. In this posting and the next, I’ll examine reasons why we need such a framework NOW – first the impacts of the Great Recession, and then the unrealistic expectations of so many of our citizens.

The Great Recession of the last two+ years has created a new reality for communities. The resources that communities, states, and the federal government have available for disaster recovery may not be there for the next disaster. Across the country, tax revenues are falling. At least 35 states expect to have budget shortfalls this year; last year, 49 out of the 50 actually did. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that translated to almost 300,000 less workers in government in December, 2009, than a year before – and at least 17 states already have announced they will reduce staff again this year. This year, the National Debt is expected to approach 90% of our national GDP. We just don’t have the money – or the human resources – to repeat the recovery from Katrina (cost $230B and counting), at least not the way we’ve done it before.

And it does not look like the economic picture will significantly improve any time soon. Only the most glowing – and unrealistic – projections of our economy lead to reductions of more than a percent a year in unemployment over the next decade. These rosy assumptions fly in the face of the projections of many economists that we will see another economic dip within the next two years. read the entire article >

John Plodinec

The Accelerating Rate of Change

February 2nd, 2010 - John Plodinec  

In my previous post on the need for a national framework for community resilience, I focused on the new spectrum of hazards facing American communities. In this post, I’d like to look at another reason why a national framework is needed – the accelerating rate of change.

As I’ve noted earlier, in early American communities the pace of change was relatively slow – communities usually could adapt to emerging trends and new hazards at their own pace. A person in his prime in 1700 would not be all that uncomfortable in the America of 1800 (unless, of course, he was a violent royalist!). A city dweller in her prime in 1800 might be overwhelmed with all of the new technologies (street lights, streetcars, horseless carriages!) in the world of 1900, but her country cousin would still be able to recognize her world of 1800 in that of 1900. In today’s techno centric world, the accelerating rate of technological change means that those in their prime in 1900 would face a completely unfamiliar – and perhaps terrifying – world.

As noted in an excellent report by Susi Moser and Shanna Ratner (“Community Resilience and Wealth….”), available at the US Endowment for Forestry and Communities, http://www.usendowment.org/communityresilience.html, rural communities are now faced with the need to adapt, or re-invent, themselves every fifteen years. Why is that? read the entire article >

John Plodinec

Old and New Threats to Communities

January 27th, 2010 - John Plodinec  

In the first post of this series, I summarized the reasons that a community resilience framework is needed – now. In my last post, I expanded on one of them: the growing complexity of communities. In this post, I want to expand on another of them: the new spectrum of threats facing communities.

American communities have always been at risk from natural hazards and pandemics. However, the evolving and ever more complex nature of communities, and the rise of global terrorism have brought new vulnerabilities. A community resilience framework can help communities identify these vulnerabilities, and take steps to mitigate them.

With the growing affluence after World War II, Americans were able to live wherever they wanted, rather than where they were born and raised. As a result, more and more people have migrated to what they deem to be more attractive locations. In 1900, less than half of our population lived near either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. Now, over three fourths of Americans live within 50 miles of one of the coasts, and the proportion is increasing. Smaller communities that were formed as a hub for agricultural activity are disappearing, or are being transformed into bedroom communities for a nearby urban center. Where once almost all communities were self-sufficient, now most communities have complex ties to others in their region or the nation (and, more and more, to the rest of the world), and must depend on others for critical capabilities. read the entire article >

John Plodinec

Community Complexity and Need for a Framework

January 19th, 2010 - John Plodinec  

Generally, communities in early America were formed based on the perceived self-interest of their members – at convenient points for land or water transportation, or near valuable natural resources, or for mutual defense or for religious reasons. These early communities quickly became hubs of activity for the common good – for defense against hostile intruders, for trade, for education.

In the earliest days, most communities were self-sufficient – the community provided its citizens with the essentials from local farmers, artisans and craftsmen. The community had to be relatively self-sufficient; most communities were rather isolated (for example, it would take two hours to go from Harlem to central Manhattan, even by ferry) and travel farther than a few tens of miles was both difficult and expensive. These early communities were also relatively stable; their reasons for being – whether economic, defensive or religious – changed very slowly. For most communities, this meant that in times of crisis, people almost instinctively knew who they could rely on for support in times of crisis. Timely assistance could only come from their friends and neighbors – people they had known their entire lives – to recover.

With the growth of cities like Philadelphia, Charleston, Boston and New York, the nature of communities began to become more complex. Instead of looking to the entire community in a crisis, people relied on their neighborhood for support. The neighborhood was largely a place where you lived, and citizens had to look to other neighborhoods – and eventually other communities – for some of their needs. Thus, while early American communities were self-sufficient, cities – and especially neighborhoods – became less so. read the entire article >

John Plodinec

Need for a framework – now!

January 13th, 2010 - John Plodinec  

Two questions that we are hearing more and more are:

1) Why does the country need a community resilience framework?
2) Why should we work on developing one now?

There are several trends that point to the need for a framework.

THE GROWING COMPLEXITY OF COMMUNITIES. American communities today are much more complex than ever before, and becoming more so. Almost all communities are enmeshed in a complex web of interdependencies, both within the community and with other communities. A framework can help citizens, community leaders and state and federal entities better understand the nature of each community. In times of disaster, this understanding is essential for obtaining resources and maximizing their impact.

THE NEW SPECTRUM OF HAZARDS FACING COMMUNITIES. American communities have always been at risk from natural hazards and pandemics. However, growing community complexity and the rise of global terrorism have brought new vulnerabilities. A framework can help communities to better understand these vulnerabilities, and to take action to limit impacts. read the entire article >

Warren Edwards

Community Resilience: The Third Roundtable

December 8th, 2009 - Warren Edwards  

The Community and Regional Resilience Institute conducted its third invitational Community Resilience Roundtable in Washington on December 1. The purpose of these roundtables has been to assemble a diverse group of resilience stakeholders, let them know what CARRI is doing, obtain their feedback and solicit their advice. This year’s group, by far the most senior and diverse assemblage to date, provided excellent counsel and guidance as CARRI presented an early draft of its work, “Toward a Common Framework for Community Resilience.” CARRI intends that the common framework described in this document will be the starting point for a broader development process that includes practitioners, researchers and a wide variety of other stakeholders.

A “common framework” would provide the nation and its communities with a widely accepted, coherent, measurable way of understanding community resilience and applying that understanding to the community in a meaningful way. In this context, a “framework” is an intellectual construct that is coherent (its parts fit together) and complete (considers the entire subject). A framework for community resilience should assist the community by helping it to discover how the interdependencies within and outside the community impact its resilience in a systematic and consistent manner. The framework should also help the community identify external resources that will aid in recovery and redevelopment after a disaster and provide guidance for pre-crisis investments.

The early draft of CARRI’s “Toward a Common Framework for Community Resilience” has been through an initial review by CARRI’s national research advisor team and their recommendations as well as the outstanding comments from last week’s CARRI Roundtable are currently being incorporated. The resulting revision will be circulated to a wider audience of reviewers and then serve as the starting point for a national dialogue on community resilience.

Those wishing to participate in this second review should contact the Community and Regional Resilience Institute at info@resilientus.org.

Next Page »