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.