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

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

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.

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.

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

admin

Surge Capacity Planning in Fair Weather Saves the Day When Skies Darken

February 3rd, 2011 - admin  

In risk management terms, a major snow storm in the Northeast in late December is a high-probability event. The impact of such an event, however, is determined not only by the severity of the storm, but on how well the community is prepared for and responds to the disaster. As an anticipatable event, identifying resources and issuing memoranda of understanding before a snow disaster saves time, confusion, money and lives.

Health professionals speak of “surge capacity” when they are confronted with having to treat more patients than they can routinely handle. Fire departments do as well when they must deal with a massive conflagration. Clearly, the importance of addressing surge capacity should not be limited to fire departments and hospitals.

If a community asks itself the question – what happens if the demands of an event exceed municipal resources; what provisions have been put in place? – that is a first step toward mounting a strong emergency response. An overwhelmed snow removal fleet is no different than a multi-alarm fire or a disaster that brings a surge of patients to a hospital and overwhelms the system.

The old adage, “A stitch in time saves nine,” may be hackneyed, but it does make a point. By asking critical questions and preparing before a disaster means the system is already in place when a disaster hits. Accessing capacity is the first step toward coming up with regionally deployable strategies to mitigate against situations where capacity is exceeded. Though the concept of a “surge capacity fleet” may be new, the key steps needed to undertake such an effort are hardly elusive:

  • Identify independent contractors and others with snow removal equipment
  • Establish a universal agreement process to bring outside contractors into the emergency response equation
  • Identify gaps in the snow removal system, i.e., if the city’s fleet is wholly occupied clearing major arteries, the surge capacity fleet would be assigned to clear other prioritized areas such as emergency vehicle routes,  bus stops and other commuter services, secondary roads, etc. Included in this is the establishment of a system for prioritizing what areas should be cleared in order of importance
  • Establish an incident management system to synchronize existing resources with unified command and traditional emergency management
  • Establish maintenance and logistics support agreements, contingency contracting and volunteer corps. Working out matters such as how private contractors will be paid is much better to establish before the disaster than after when the economic clean-up can be messy.

During an emergency, people want to pitch in and do what they can to make a difference. An organized system to harness those resources can spell the difference between a disaster having a high impact on a community or reducing the impact to something much more manageable.

John Plodinec

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.

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.

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