The crux of the problem is a lack of coordination between the players contributing to long-term recovery.
Federal, state, nonprofit and volunteer groups tend to respond to emergencies independently, often rebuilding the same vulnerabilities that compounded the disaster in the first place. Public empathy and zeal to rebuild often propel well intended recovery efforts without those involved knowing relevant regulations, according to Gavin Smith, executive director of the Center for the Study of Natural Hazards and Disasters at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. States tend to be sluggish about communicating that data to recovery groups, often doing so after efforts are near completion. In some cases, federal funding that could have helped recovery becomes available long after projects have started.
It seems that society’s natural inclination is to find a uniform approach for all communities to make long-term recovery improvements. However, most experts warn that’s a foolish expectation, given the diversity of needs and resources in local areas. Emergency management officials and analysts can offer examples of what works, but most agree that the real answers are within each community.
Uniform Coordination Myth
Most agree that more coordination between the different players in a recovery is essential for effective long-term efforts. However, Smith said it’s unrealistic for federal or state planners to mandate uniformly who the coordinating organization should be. This lack of uniformity can be maddening for government planners, especially at the federal level, due to the logistics involved in disbursing funds. Pronouncing that recovery funds will always go to "agency X” is simpler to administrate.“In different communities, different players take on the collaborative leadership role,” Smith said. “It could be a neighborhood association. It could be local government. It could be a member of the private sector. I’m suggesting the federal, state and local governments’ role can be to provide education and outreach training for teams at the local level — not necessarily dictate recovery, but help them build their capacity.”
Smith said he’d like to see a new federal recovery act that mandates federal or state agencies to coach individual communities in identifying who their recovery players and leaders are. That lead player would interact with federal and state agencies regarding funding. Smith also wants to see this act earmark funding for long-term preventive recovery activities, especially training.
“There has been post-Katrina legislation. At least on its face, it’s trying to address some of these issues, but it’s hard to tell how effective that is,” Smith said. “The federal government tends to spend the bulk of its time dealing with the postdisaster aftermath, rather than investing in pre-event planning for postdisaster recovery or investing in capacity-building.”
Once that coordination happens, state and federal agencies need to be ready to update the recovery groups on relevant regulations immediately after a disaster strikes, said Nancy Dragani, executive director of the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.
“You can’t wait anymore. You can’t even wait until day three or four,” Dragani said. “When the water is still up, you need to begin communicating with the constituents and volunteer groups.”
“Recovery starts the minute the response to an event occurs,” said John S. Fernandes, administrator of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management.
His agency is widely viewed as having a well organized long-term recovery coordination for mudslides. Mudslides in Southern California typically result from wildfires eliminating the vegetation that would normally contain that mud during rainstorms. While the fires are still burning, Los Angles County begins setting up incident management centers devoted to the mudslides anticipated to result months later.
“We establish teams to assess the fire damage areas and look at the weather pattern trends in respect to what to expect in terms of rainfall,” explained Fernandes.
Based on that analysis, the incident management team conducts a public outreach campaign advising citizens on what to expect and where to go for assistance. The team also uses the data to plan where to set up temporary shelters.
Smith said there’s a common misconception that nonprofits can do no wrong during disasters.
“They cut through the red tape. They may assist individuals more quickly than the federal government. They may, for example, repair their house shortly after the storm, whereas it might take months, and in some cases years, to get federal assistance,” Smith explained. “They’re well intentioned efforts, but oftentimes nonprofits rebuild the damaged homes to their previous conditions in areas that just received storm surges or flooding. They’re in essence setting the stage for the next disaster.”
Ohio recently learned that the hard way after a local flood. The state waited several days before advising volunteers on the new base-flood elevation rules and requirements for “substantially damaged” homes.
“There was intense motivation to rebuild very quickly — to build within one or two days. By day five, our flood plain managers got in and said, ‘Wait a minute, you have substantially damaged homes, which fall under different criteria for rebuilding,’” Dragani said. “People were already halfway through a rebuild. They didn’t want to hear it at that point. I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it at that point.”
Realistic Precautions
It’s also important to promote a culture of realistic expectations regarding long-term recovery, said Claire B. Rubin, emergency management adviser and president of Claire B. Rubin and Associates. There’s no such thing as foolproof long-term recovery because disasters behave differently each time they strike.As important as it is to have a thorough long-term recovery plan, communities should be mindful of the limitations Mother Nature imposes on any prevention strategy, said Rubin. She warns that even areas with mature, well thought-out recovery plans can be caught ill-equipped. She pointed to several hurricanes that hit Corpus Christi, Texas, during a span of time when the city had the same disaster officials.
“There was that hard-earned experience, and yet the characteristics of at least two of the hurricanes — 10 years apart — were entirely different. One pushed water in, and salt water pushed up into fresh water streams and caused a serious problem. The subsequent hurricane, because of the way it hit, sucked water out and left boats pulled out and then thrown back on the shore,” said Rubin. “I was absolutely struck that even if you knew Corpus Christi was going to get hit, even if you had the same public officials in place with prior knowledge, the characteristics of the hit could be different, even though it was the same disaster agent — a hurricane.”
She recalled a situation in earthquake-prone Marin County, Calif., where meticulous long-term recovery had only a limited benefit. She described the county’s zealous disaster recovery official.
“He had run everybody through all kinds of emergency drills and practices. They were really kind of sick and tired of him. Then they experienced a disaster, but it wasn’t an earthquake. It turned out to be extreme storms and then landslides, all of which were related to earthquakes. They have unstable soil, so they were relatively well prepared, but not for the disaster that actually hit them,” Rubin said.
She remarked that communities could reach a general level of useful long-term prevention, but more research was needed first.
“The thing about a really comprehensive recovery strategy framework and plan is that it would involve multiple federal agencies. That hasn’t been tackled yet. This is not anything that’s going to resolve very easily. It’s going to require a really major study,” Rubin said, later adding, “If I were in a major job at FEMA or the DHS, I would convene an expert panel at the National Academy of Public Administration or the National Academy of Sciences. You need multiple disciplines and multiple agencies’ perspectives.”
Ohio’s Dragani has a few suggestions for such a plan. She said recovery operations typically lack strategies for ensuring that small businesses can provide the services demanded of them after emergencies.
“It’s a chicken-and-the-egg kind of thing. People are challenged in moving back into a community that’s devastated until the businesses are there to support them, yet the businesses can’t survive until the people are there to purchase those goods and services,” Dragani explained. “Understanding how the economic impact on small business affects long-term recovery and being able to tie them into any long-term recovery plan should be one of the top three priorities.”
She also pointed out that rebuilding public buildings should reflect the inevitable population shifts that result from natural disasters. For example, imagine a hurricane devastated an area with a 12,000-student school. The rate of people moving out of the area might dictate that only an 8,000-student school need be rebuilt.
Failing the Federal Threshold
One challenge of the long-term recovery discussion often ignored is when disasters fail to qualify for receiving federal disaster declarations. Not reaching that threshold sharply limits the amount of federal assistance communities can get for long-term recovery.“If you aggregate all smaller events that are never declared federal disasters, they exceed the total damages of those events that are declared,” Smith said.
Dragani said states should establish programs that mirror those offered by FEMA, but with lower eligibility thresholds.
“In Ohio, we have an individual assistance program that the governor can activate at his and her discretion. The only threshold is that we have to have a Small Business Administration disaster-type of situation, which is far easier to get than a threshold for a federal disaster,” Dragani said.
She added that states could put special effort into organizing the appropriate volunteers in different communities. Dragani recommended that states collaborate with the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster group. She warned of the citizen backlash that can happen without contingency plans for not meeting the federal threshold.
“If I live in a community and we have 15 homes that are destroyed, and one of those homes is mine, I don’t really care about the federal threshold. It was a disaster for me.”
[Photo courtesy of Jacinta Quesada/FEMA.]
