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Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
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CHAPTER ONE
Introduction

The single greatest strength that we possess is the indomitable spirit and capability of the American people. So building a resilient nation doesn’t come from a top-down, government-only, command-and-control approach; it comes from a bottom-up approach; it comes from Americans connecting, collaborating; it comes from asking questions and finding new solutions. And it comes from all of us as a shared responsibility.

—Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, to American Red Cross, July 29, 2009


Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and many business executives, leaders of nongovernment organizations (NGOs), and academics conclude: effective private–public collaborations are essential for building community-level disaster resilience. This prompts a series of questions:

  • What is resilience?

  • To what threats should our communities and our nation be resilient?

  • What is the state of resilience-building collaborations across the nation?

  • What makes existing partnerships effective?

  • By what criteria are partnerships judged, and what is the current state of the art?

  • What are the challenges in achieving successful community-level collaboration for disaster resilience?

  • What remedies are available?

  • What are the essential elements of a framework for effective collaboration?

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

STATEMENT OF TASK

To date, the private and public sectors have lacked a comprehensive framework to guide their efforts as they collaborate for the purpose of enhancing community disaster resilience. Under the sponsorship of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Research Council convened a panel of experts to assess the state of the art of private–public sector collaboration dedicated to strengthening community resilience, to identify gaps in knowledge and practice, and to recommend research to be targeted for investment by the DHS Human Factors Behavioral Sciences Division. The committee comprised researchers and practitioners who had expertise in emergency management, local-government management and administration, community and multistakeholder collaboration, critical-infrastructure protection, disaster management, and on-the-ground experience in establishing and maintaining community-resilience initiatives and public–private partnerships. Appendix A presents brief biographies of the committee members. The committee’s statement of task, as provided by the DHS, is shown in Box 1.1. The committee received useful input during a national workshop that it convened on September 9–10, 2009, and prepared a summary of the major themes discussed in the workshop (NRC, 2010a).

Collaboration between the private and public sectors could improve the ability of a community to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural or human-caused disasters. Past reports from the National Research Council have identified innovative, collaborative organizational structures that could enhance the diverse community interests in matters of national concern (e.g., NRC, 1998, 2006). Others have identified specific efforts where the private and public sectors have worked cooperatively on measures that reduce the effects of disaster—such as implementing building codes, retrofitting buildings, and issuing extreme-weather warnings—and identified candidates for such collaboration, such as risk-based insurance premiums and model land-use practices (e.g., Mason, 2006; Jones Kershaw, 2005). Recognizing that a community’s ability to respond to and recover from disaster depends partly on the strength and effectiveness of its social networks, DHS sponsored a 2009 National Research Council workshop on how social network analysis—the study of complex human systems—can reveal the structure of existing networks so that a community can design or improve its networks for the purpose of building community resilience (Magsino, 2009).

To help the reader understand the concepts deliberated by the committee, this chapter provides working definitions for key terms such as “resilience” and “community.” Examples of disasters that challenge community resilience are provided, beginning with a brief discussion of the financial burden associated with disasters. The committee then briefly examines disaster management policy in the United States and the role of private–public collaboration in building community resilience. A description of the committee’s approach to addressing its charge and a description of the report organization completes this chapter.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

BOX 1.1

Statement of Task

A National Research Council committee will assess the current state of the art in private–public sector partnerships dedicated to strengthening community resilience, identify gaps in knowledge and practice, and recommend research areas that could be targeted for research investment by the DHS Human Factors Division.

In its report, the committee will:

  • Identify the components of a framework for private–public sector partnerships dedicated to strengthening community resilience;

  • Develop a set of guidelines for private sector engagement in the development of a framework for enhancing community resilience; and

  • Examine options and successful models of existing collaborations ranging from centralized to decentralized approaches, and make recommendations for a structure that could further the goal of collaboration between the private and public sectors for the objective of enhancing community resilience.

The study will be organized around a public workshop that explores issues including the following through invited presentations and facilitated discussions among invited participants:

  • Current efforts at the regional, state and community levels to develop private–public partnerships for the purpose of developing and enhancing community preparedness and resilience;

  • Motivators, inhibitors, advantages and liabilities for private sector engagement in private–public sector cooperation in planning, resource allocation and preparedness for natural and man-made hazards;

  • Distinctions in perceptions or motivations between large national-level corporations and the small business community that might influence the formation of private–public sector partnerships, particularly in smaller or rural communities;

  • Gaps in current knowledge and practice in private–public sector partnerships that inhibit the ability to develop collaboration across sectors;

  • Research areas that could bridge these gaps; and

  • Design, development and implementation of collaborative endeavors for the purpose of strengthening the resilience of communities to natural and man-made hazards.

WHAT IS RESILIENCE?

The term resilience is encountered in many disciplines, but no definition is common to all. Different elements or attributes of resilience are emphasized, but all definitions speak in a general way to the continued ability of a person, group, or system to adapt to stress—such

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

as any sort of disturbance—so that it may continue to function, or quickly recover its ability to function, during and after stress.

The committee charge included focus on “community resilience.” In its work, the committee relied on a definition of resilience put forward by Norris and others (2008), who describe it as the ability of groups, such as communities and cities, to withstand hazards or to recover from such disruptions as natural disasters. Building and maintaining resilience depend on the ability of a group to monitor changes and to modify its plans to deal with adversity appropriately. Similarly, John Plodinec has observed that the ability of a community to recover after a disaster is greater if resilience was implicitly or explicitly considered by members of the community as an inherent and dynamic part of the community (CARRI, 2009). He understands that a resilient community is one that anticipates threats, mitigates potential harm when possible, and prepares to adapt in adversity. Such communities more rapidly recover and restore functionality after a crisis. He has also indicated that a community’s ability to compare itself to other communities with respect the ability to adapt to adversity is important because it can help identify needed improvements.1

Community resilience thus refers generally to the continued ability of a community to function during and after stress. Implicit in discussion of building community disaster resilience in this report is that all sectors of a community (government, private for-profit, private nonprofit, and citizens) can and should participate in building resilience through all phases of disaster: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

COMMUNITY AS MORE THAN JURISDICTION

The term community is defined differently by different people when they consider disaster preparedness, response and recovery planning, and implementation. Defining communities by geographic boundaries ignores the reality that disasters do not respect jurisdictions. Community-level collaboration intended to address disruptions must draw on the full array of diverse social networks in which residents and public and private entities are engaged. These are not defined exclusively by, or confined to, jurisdictional boundaries. Definitions of community based on jurisdictional boundaries may lead to a static idea of what constitutes a community; in reality, communities are dynamic and ever-changing. Similarly, while a community may extend beyond geographical and political boundaries, it might also be defined as something much smaller. In large municipalities—such as Los Angeles, California, or New York City, New York—individuals may be tied to a sense of community that is much smaller and of more immediate scale.

Etienne Wenger defines a community as “a group of people for whom the domain of interest is relevant” (Wenger, 1998). The committee expands Wenger’s “group of people”

1

J. Plodinec, Community and Regional Resilience Institute, personal communication, June 28, 2010.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

to include the full fabric of a community and all its partners. The “domain of interest” in this report is community disaster resilience. Seeing communities as dynamic and connected with entities beyond jurisdictional boundaries does not negate the importance of collaboration that reflects the needs, priorities, and economies of the geographic communities and regions the collaborative networks serve.

The phrase “full fabric of the community” is used throughout this report and is integral to the committee’s definition of community, particularly in the context of disasters and the role of collaboration at the local level. Community disaster mitigation, planning, response, and recovery require the active involvement of local government, but the attention and engagement of federal, state, regional, and tribal governments are also essential, as are private-sector energies and assets (Edwards, 2009). The committee defines the private sector broadly and comprehensively as including large and small for-profit corporations and also nongovernment, volunteer, academic, faith-based, and other entities that help define the social life and stability of a community. The committee understands that private–public collaboration to achieve community disaster resilience hinges on the notion that disruptions such as disasters tear at all or portions of a community’s social fabric.

TO WHAT MUST WE BE RESILIENT?

A myriad of potential disasters puts communities at risk. Natural and human-caused disasters result in public health emergencies suffering, loss of life, damage to economies, and damage to community environments. Individuals and institutions often fail to perceive that hazards may pose unacceptable risk to their communities and ways of life. Further, individuals and institutions often fail to accept their role in reducing that risk. The next sections describe some types of disasters that could affect communities. These hazards include natural disasters, public health emergencies, human-caused disasters, disasters caused by cyber vulnerabilities or by emerging technological and business practices, and climate change. Some of these risks may be greater for some communities than others, and communities may face other hazards not discussed in this report, including those related to the very real effects of economic recessions and unemployment.

Losses from disaster can devastate communities and nations. Natural and human-caused disasters claimed 240,000 lives in 2008 and nearly 15,000 lives in 20092 worldwide and led to economic losses of approximately US$268 billion and US$62 billion, respectively (see Figure 1.1). Swiss Reinsurance Company estimated in early 2010 that the cost of natural disasters alone in 2010 could reach US$110 billion worldwide (Swiss Re, 2010).

2

Nearly 9,000 people died or were missing because of natural disasters in 2009; the others were victims of human-caused disasters, i.e., major events associated with human activities (excluding war, civil war, and warlike events).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×
FIGURE 1.1 Natural-catastrophe losses worldwide, 1980–2009, in billions of U.S. dollars (indexed to 2009). The spike corresponding with 1995 reflects largely the Kobe earthquake. The 2005 spike represents the effects of Hurricane Katrina. The 2008 spike correlates with the earthquake in China and Hurricane Ike in the United States. SOURCE: Swiss Re, sigma catastrophe database.

FIGURE 1.1 Natural-catastrophe losses worldwide, 1980–2009, in billions of U.S. dollars (indexed to 2009). The spike corresponding with 1995 reflects largely the Kobe earthquake. The 2005 spike represents the effects of Hurricane Katrina. The 2008 spike correlates with the earthquake in China and Hurricane Ike in the United States. SOURCE: Swiss Re, sigma catastrophe database.

This was determined after the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, but before, for example, the massive flooding that occurred in many parts of Asia. Figure 1.1 shows a steady rise in the financial losses associated with natural disasters worldwide from 1980 to 2009. By comparison, Table 1.1 lists the human and economic losses to major human-caused disasters worldwide in 2009, according to loss category.

Many research and policy communities acknowledge the threat of disasters and associated economic losses and have sought to reduce socioeconomic vulnerability to, for example, climate and weather-related hazards. They include groups interested in disaster-risk reduction, climate-change adaptation, environmental management, and poverty reduction. The work of those groups, however, has been fragmented, and the groups have worked largely independently of one another, so they have had only small success in reducing vulnerability (Thomalla et al., 2006). In later sections of this report, the committee will make the case for an “all hazards” approach to building community resilience, which means understanding all hazards that pose a threat to community but focusing attention on the ones most likely to occur. It is an underlying assumption of the committee that a resilient community prepared for one kind of disaster will be able to adapt when faced with another.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

TABLE 1.1 List of Major Losses Worldwide in 2009 According to Loss Category

 

Number of Events

Percent of Total

Dead or Missing

Percent of Total

Insured Lossesa (USD)

Percent of Total

Natural disasters

133

46.2%

8,977

60.2%

22,355

85.1%

Human-caused disasters

155

53.8%

5,939

39.8%

3,915

14.9%

Major fires and explosions

30

10.4%

756

5.1%

1,605

6.1%

Aviation and space disasters

15

5.2%

783

5.2%

752

2.9%

Maritime disasters

39

13.5%

2,146

14.5%

1,359

5.2%

Rail disasters (incl. cableways)

10

3.5%

70

0.5%

1

0.0%

Mining accidents

11

3.8%

544

3.6%

43

0.2%

Collapse of buildings/bridges

10

3.5%

410

2.7%

86

0.3%

Miscellaneousb

40

13.9%

1,230

8.2%

69

0.2%

Total

288

100.0%

14,916

100.0%

26,270

100.0%

a Property and business interruption, excluding liability and life insurance losses

b Includes social unrest, terrorism, and “other miscellaneous losses”

SOURCE: Swiss Re (2010).

Natural Disasters

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there have been 66 declarations of disaster in the United States in 2010 (as of September); in contrast, there were 59 disaster declarations in all of 2009.3 Insured natural-disaster losses in the United States exceeded $11 billion in 2009 (Munich Re, 2009). In the decade 2000–2009, natural disasters in the United States caused over $350 billion in economic losses, or an average of $35 billion per year (Munich Re, 2009). For many in harm’s way, financial losses can be catastrophic—the loss of home or savings for retirement. Distribution of declared U.S. disasters in the last decade4 indicates that most Americans will be affected by disaster sometime in their lives. The loss is equivalent to $1,200 for every American over the 10-year period. Combined decadal economic and insured losses to natural disasters have increased by a factor of nearly 6 since the 1980s, as illustrated in Figure 1.2. By contrast, the U.S. Gross Domestic Product has only doubled during this same period.5

3

See www.fema.gov/news/disaster_totals_annual.fema (accessed May 17, 2010).

4

See www.gismaps.fema.gov/recent.pdf (accessed September 7, 2010) for a map of Presidential Disaster Declarations.

5

See www.data360.org/dataset.aspx?Data_Set_Id=354 (accessed September 7, 2010).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×
FIGURE 1.2 Estimated economic and insured losses to natural disasters (in 2009 dollars) in the United States per decade. SOURCE: ©2010 Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Geo Risks Research, NatCatSERVICE. Munich Re (2009).

FIGURE 1.2 Estimated economic and insured losses to natural disasters (in 2009 dollars) in the United States per decade. SOURCE: ©2010 Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Geo Risks Research, NatCatSERVICE. Munich Re (2009).

Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, and other weather-related events; landslides; and volcanic hazards can affect communities well beyond those physically affected by the event. This is due, in part, to increased interconnectedness between local and national communities. Human and economic losses associated with these impacts are steadily increasing, in part because of increasing population densities. The 10 costliest disasters since 1950 occurred in the years 1992–2010 (Wirtz, 2010). Figure 1.1 indicates that losses to natural catastrophes worldwide have risen substantially, from an average of about US$20 billion in the 1980s to an average of over US$100 billion in the 2000s (Swiss Re, 2010). The global death toll from moderate earthquakes in the coming decades is predicted to average 8,000–10,000 per year. Individual catastrophic earthquakes are predicted to cause the decadal average to exceed 50,000 per year (Bilham, 2009). The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which resulted in over 220,000 deaths,6 reminds us that the Pacific United States is vulnerable to similar events.

6

See earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/ (accessed September 10, 2010).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

Public Health Emergencies

Communities are vulnerable to public health emergencies that may arise from natural or human causes. These include emergencies associated with pandemics, bioterrorism, mass casualties caused by terrorist or accidental incidents, chemical emergencies, emergencies arising from natural disasters and severe weather, radiation emergencies, and threats to water and food security including water- and food-borne diseases. Community vulnerability to a pandemic was brought to immediate attention in 2009 following a worldwide outbreak of the potentially deadly influenza A (H1N1) virus. On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that a global pandemic of the H1N1 virus was underway, and by June 19, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands reported cases of the virus. On August 10, 2010, the WHO declared an end to the outbreak.7 The total global or national cost of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic has not been calculated with certainty, and the effect of the pandemic was less severe than some predicted. However, some research indicates the average annual cost of influenza in the United States is approximately $10.4 billion in direct medical costs, with a total economic burden of $87.1 billion (Molinari et al., 2007).8

The H1N1 virus reminded the nation how vulnerable communities are to public health disasters. Given the increase in travel among U.S. residents, even small communities are not immune to the dangers of a pandemic. Increasing population in urban centers means a greater risk of spread of disease. Part of an all-hazards approach to community resilience is consideration of all manner of threats to public health that can affect the health, economy, and proper functioning of the community.

Human-Caused Disasters

The nation’s communities are also vulnerable to disasters caused by failures of technology and by willful acts of terrorism. Disasters resulting from the development of energy resources and the disposal of their wastes have been a fact of life for many communities since the industrial revolution. In modern times, the failure of a coal-waste impoundment dam in West Virginia after heavy rains resulted in 125 deaths and an estimated $50 million in property damage in what has become known as the Buffalo Creek flood of 1972 (NRC, 2002). Several other coal-waste impoundment failures have occurred since 1972, including a 2008 failure in Kingston, Tennessee, that released over a billion gallons of coal-waste slurry onto communities and into watersheds. The latter was described as the most serious toxic disaster of its kind to have occurred in the United States (Dewan, 2008).

7

See www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/background.htm (accessed September 13, 2010).

8

Lost productivity from missed work days and lost lives comprise the bulk of the economic burden of influenza.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

Toxic disasters can also result from the energy extraction and transport industries. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill is ranked among history’s most devastating marine accidents (NRC, 2003), having affected over 1,100 miles of coastline, wildlife, and communities. The social and environmental effects of that spill are still apparent over 20 years later. In April 2010, an oil-rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in the death of 11 workers and released tens of thousands of gallons of oil a day into the Gulf for three months, amounting to the largest oil spill ever in U.S. waters (McCoy and Salerno, 2010). The long-term environmental, health, and economic effects of this disaster have yet to be determined, but the Gulf Coast of the United States is already feeling the economic burden; a preliminary analysis by the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation found that the spill may impact 7.3 million active businesses throughout Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, affecting 34.4 million employees and $5.2 trillion in sales volume (D&B, 2010). Although the flow of oil was stopped in late July, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) kept a large portion of the Gulf of Mexico closed to commercial and recreational fishing for the remainder of the summer. Figure 1.3 illustrates areas of the Gulf that were closed from June until September 2010.

Nuclear energy production and waste disposal also pose risks. The nuclear reactor melt-down of the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine in 1986 caused the evacuation and resettlement of 336,000 people from the area (UNSCEAR, 2000). The number of those struck with illness related to radiation is not known, but it is estimated that about 4,000 of the 600,000 people most highly exposed will suffer fatal radiation-induced cases of cancer.

Another 5,000 cases of cancer in peripheral populations will probably also be diagnosed (Mettler, 2006). No one is permitted to live within 17 miles of the reactor (Bell, 2006). Acts of violence and terrorism affect our nation and its communities. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which caused nearly 3,000 deaths (The 9/11 Commission, 2004), are among the deadliest disasters ever to occur on U.S. soil and have resulted in numerous societal changes in communities and nations around the world. The interdependence of different types of critical infrastructure was made obvious. For example, after the attack in New York City, water-main breaks flooded rail tunnels, a commuter station, and a facility that housed all the cables for one of the world’s largest telecommunication nodes. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange was halted for 6 days because of failure of communication infrastructure (O’Rourke, 2007).

Cyber Failure and Cyber Attacks

Cyber infrastructure refers to infrastructure based on integrated distributed computer, information, and communication technology; it includes not only the electronic systems themselves—composed of the hardware and software that process, store, and communicate data—but also on the information contained in these systems (NSF, 2003; DHS, 2009).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×
FIGURE 1.3 Red boundaries indicate areas closed to fishing by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on (a) May 18, (b) July 12, and (c) September 2, 2010. The shaded portion in (c) indicates the area reopened to fishing. The star on each map locates the leaking well. SOURCE: NOAA.

FIGURE 1.3 Red boundaries indicate areas closed to fishing by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on (a) May 18, (b) July 12, and (c) September 2, 2010. The shaded portion in (c) indicates the area reopened to fishing. The star on each map locates the leaking well. SOURCE: NOAA.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

The U.S. economy and national security depend heavily on the global cyber infrastructure. Military, police, firefighters, and other emergency services providers rely on computers, information networks, and the Global Positioning System (GPS) to carry out missions and respond to crises. GPS, for example, is an important timing reference for the national power grid and for telecommunications, including telephone systems, the Internet, and cell phones in this country. As cyber dependency and interconnectedness increase, so does the potential for cyber failure to spread quickly and have debilitating impacts on local and state communities (DHS, 2009).

Cyber failure can result from either natural events or malicious cyber attacks. For example, electromagnetic pulses from solar storms can have disastrous consequences, as happened in 1989 when a severe magnetic storm overloaded the power grid in Quebec, causing millions of dollars in damage and leaving millions of people without power (OCIPEP, 2003). According to an estimate by the Metatech Corporation, a long-term, wide-area blackout caused by an extreme space weather event could cost as much as $2 trillion during the first year, with full recovery requiring 4 to 10 years (NRC, 2009).

Attacks on cyber infrastructure by government, criminal, or terrorist groups or individuals are also a growing concern. A report issued in 2001 for the U.S. Department of Transportation described risks to information and communications infrastructure vulnerabilities affecting civilian aviation, maritime, and surface transportation as a result of loss or degradation of GPS signal (Volpe Center, 2001). That report—almost a decade old—also described risks to transportation cyber infrastructure, many of which are relevant today. A survey in June 2009 found that cybercrime in the previous two years cost Americans more than $8 billion (Consumer Reports, 2009). Popular news outlets have reported that inexpensive GPS jammers that fit in a shirt pocket are available online for purchase (though illegal in the United States), and can be used to disrupt GPS reception and confuse emergency responders who rely on GPS for communication and logistical operations (e.g., Brandon, 2010).

Risk of cyber failure, whether due to natural but largely predictable atmospheric disruptions, mechanical failure, failure of software operation, or malicious intent, is a serious and growing issue for communities across the country.

Climate Change

A National Research Council study indicates that the global climate is changing and that temperatures have risen nearly 2F (1C) in the last 50 years (NRC, 2010b). Expert projections of trends related to climate change and variation, as cited in recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (e.g., IPCC, 2007a), together with demographic and economic trends that suggest population growth in higher-risk coastal

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

areas show that the United States could face a future of increased loss of life, economic costs, and social disruptions from disasters. Water quality could be drastically affected in communities around the world (IPCC, 2008) with substantial consequences for individuals, businesses, communities, and nations if complex and tightly coupled social and infrastructure systems are affected. Even a moderate climate event, natural disaster, or technologic disruption can trigger serious cascading effects. The 2010 winter snowstorms along the mid-Atlantic coast, for example, closed the federal government for 5 days, with an estimated cost of about $100 million per day (MacAskill, 2010).

Some weather events and extremes, such as hurricanes, coastal storms, floods, droughts, and events that they cause or exacerbate (such as wildfires) may become more frequent, widespread, or intense during the 21st century as a result of climate change (e.g., NRC, 2010b; IPCC, 2007a). As extreme events become more intense or frequent or occur in different locations, their economic and social costs will increase (IPCC, 2007b). Communities around the country will need to anticipate vulnerability to climate change and adopt adaptation strategies to reduce that vulnerability (NRC, 2010b).

Projected increases in population and changes in migration patterns may alter the composition of many communities. The populations of several large American cities, for example, are expected to increase. In the United States, the South and the West are the most heavily populated and fastest-growing regions, and that growth is expected to continue in coming decades (Beach, 2002). Some 53 percent of the American population already lives within 50 miles of a coast (Markham, 2008).

Business Practices and Technologic Evolution

The increasing pace of social change, economic innovation, and technologic advance combine to create potential unanticipated vulnerability. Therefore, disasters of the past are of limited value as a guide to the future. For example, the ways in which we conduct business and efficiencies developed during the last decades—such as outsourcing and “just-in-time” inventory and delivery strategies—result in more profitable business models, but may leave organizations vulnerable. Such efficiencies reduce not only waste but profit margin. Regional and global interdependence may make it difficult for individual business operations or entire industries to tolerate disruptions associated with disasters that take place even in different parts of the world. The ash eruptions of Eyjafjallojökull Volcano in Iceland, for example, affected air traffic and therefore commerce around Europe and the world in April and May 2010 (USGS, 2010). Local businesses in communities that count on immediate air shipments of inventory were stressed: commercial growth of African flowers for European markets is a well-publicized example, and larger cascading adverse economic and social effects may result (ITC, 2010).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

DISASTER-MANAGEMENT POLICY

This section provides background and a brief overview of emergency-management policy in the United States to give context for the findings and conclusions presented in the report. The committee makes no recommendations with respect to emergency-management policy. The committee briefly describes the importance of the private sector to disaster management; gives a brief history of disaster management policy—particularly as it relates to approaches to hazards and the role of community-level disaster-related private-public partnerships; and describes the role of local communities in emergency management and the relationship between local and federal emergency managers.

In the United States, the private and public sectors both play a role in disaster management and are integral to the governing policy framework. The private sector supplies many services—such as water, power, communication networks, transportation, medical care, and security—before, during, and after a disaster. The health of the U.S. economy depends on large and small businesses and, in turn, their roles in globalization and rapid technologic advances (Bonvillian, 2004). Critical infrastructure is owned and managed largely by private entities, but existing private–public collaboration related to managing risk and building resilience could be strengthened, and collaboration could be encouraged in communities where there is little or none.

Elements of U.S. disaster-management policy are reflected in legislation and initiatives, including the Stafford Act;9 the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000;10 the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act;11 such presidential directives as Homeland Security Presidential Directives 5 and 8;12 and past and current federal disaster plans and initiatives, such as the Federal Response Plan,13 the National Response Plan,14 and the National Response Framework (FEMA, 2008). The legislation and plans reinforce the all-hazards comprehensive emergency-management approach (e.g., considering the full disaster cycle) that has been in effect for three decades. Current presidential directives, policy documents, the National Preparedness Guidelines,15 the National Response Framework, the National Recovery Framework,16 the National Incident Management System,17 and operational and implementing documents also reflect that longstanding practice.

9

See www.fema.gov/about/stafact.shtm (accessed June 20, 2010).

10

See www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=1935 (accessed June 20, 2010).

11

See www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/gc_1169243598416.shtm (accessed June 20, 2010).

12

See www.dhs.gov/xabout/laws/gc_1214592333605.shtm and www.dhs.gov/xabout/laws/gc_1215444247124.shtm (accessed June 20, 2010).

13

See biotech.law.lsu.edu/blaw/FEMA/frpfull.pdf (accessed June 20, 2010).

14

See www.scd.hawaii.gov/documents/nrp.pdf (accessed June 20, 2010).

15

See www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=3773 (accessed June 20, 2010).

16

See www.fema.gov/recoveryframework/ (accessed June 24, 2010).

17

See www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/ (accessed June 20, 2010).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

The history of emergency management reveals an evolution of institutions and their roles. In the 19th century, disasters and response were viewed as the purview of private charities. In the middle of the 20th century, emergency management focused on nuclear war, civil defense, and increasing government involvement in comprehensive emergency-management functions (Rubin, 2007; FEMA, 2005). During the 1990s, FEMA’s innovative but no longer active Project Impact program recognized the vital role of the private sector in all aspects of disaster mitigation (see Box 1.2). FEMA provided funds to more than 250 communities for mitigation and preparedness activities while promoting local autonomy in how the funds were used to reduce risk.18 The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 provided communities with more incentives for predisaster mitigation through the federally funded risk-reduction program. By July 2008, over 17,000 local jurisdictions had mitigation plans that used an active community-engagement approach and that were implemented with federal guidance (Topping, 2009). Amendments to the Stafford Act after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 direct funds toward the mitigation of future federally declared disasters (CRS, 2006). DHS was established in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks.19 The primary mission of the agency when it was established was to reduce vulnerability and prevent terrorist attacks, but DHS is also responsible for reducing disaster vulnerability more generally.

Emergency management in the United States is based on an approach in which communities are encouraged to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters at the local level. The encouragement has had limited success as local jurisdictions struggle to accomplish their responsibilities overseeing the daily operations of their communities. In reality, towns, cities and counties often rely on the capacity of the federal government to act as a first responding partner when crises evolve beyond a conventional emergency. The disparity of expectations among varied levels of government can create operational gaps when extreme events occur.

Federal government support for local and state-level activities ranges from limited seed funding for risk reduction and preparedness to larger amounts for specific antiterrorist measures. Emergency-management policies and systems highlight the importance of all-hazards planning,20 which calls for formulated responses to specific types of events, such as a release of hazardous materials, an earthquake, or a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction. That comprehensive principle has guided activities in the emergency-management community since the late 1970s (Whittaker, 1978; NGA, 1979): communities manage risks posed by natural and man-made hazards through preparation, response, and recovery. For a time after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the management of events arising from acts of terrorism took priority over other concerns (FEMA, 2005;

18

See www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=8895 (accessed June 20, 2010).

19

See www.dhs.gov/xabout/laws/law_regulation_rule_0011.shtm (accessed June 20, 2010).

20

See www.fema.gov/txt/help/fr02-4321.txt (accessed Feb. 26, 2010).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

BOX 1.2

Project Impact

In 1997, Congress first appropriated funds for the direct purposes of funding mitigation activities for disasters.a With this appropriation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) created a pilot program called Project Impact: Building Disaster Resistant Communities. Project Impact placed emphasis on and dedicated resources to the community level and led efforts to mitigate hazards. Community-level decision making was promoted. Communities were required to secure the commitment of local governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGO), and businesses. An educational component to raise awareness was also required. FEMA provided funding to form public and private partnerships within the individual communities. Project Impact envisioned four steps to building a disaster-resistant community:

  1. Building partnerships by organizing a disaster-resistant community planning committee including business and industry, public works and utilities, volunteer and community groups, government, and education, health care, and workforce representatives.

  2. Assessing a community’s risks and vulnerabilities.

  3. Identifying mitigation priorities, measures, and resources and taking action

  4. Communicating progress and maintaining collaborative involvement and support for long-term initiatives.

One Project Impact example of success is Tulsa, Oklahoma. Through community effort, Tulsa instituted long-term mitigation activities to reduce flood frequency and severity. Efforts included improving and maintaining channels and detention storage basins and clearing more than 1,000 buildings from floodplains.b Despite the termination of Project Impact in 2002, private–public sector collaboration to improve community resilience continues today through an NGO called Tulsa Partners, Inc.c

Project Impact was initiated in 1997 with a $2 million appropriation. The program received $30 million in 1998 and $25 million during 1999–2002. In each successive year, new communities were selected in each of the 50 states so that by 2000 Project Impact communities numbered over 250. Most communities received seed-funding grants from FEMA. In February 2001, Congress approved the Bush Administration’s proposal to eliminate Project Impact, less than five years after its inception. The administration sought to create a program to carry out mitigation efforts directly.

  

a McCarthy F.X. and N. Keegan. 2009. FEMA’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation Program: Overview and Issues. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. July 10. 25 pp.

  

b See www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Project-Impact-Initiative-to.html (accessed August 31, 2010).

  

c See www.tulsapartners.org/About (accessed August 31, 2010).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

Haddow and Bullock, 2005)—a trend that was reversed to some degree after the 2005 hurricane season and the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina.21

Disaster management, however, is often confined to first-responder experts, whose specific expertise alone often cannot address conditions that are the consequence of extreme events like natural or human-caused disasters. Nor may they be knowledgeable on appropriate response to nonphysical events such as economic recession and unemployment that can have devastating effects on a community. While U.S. disaster management concepts are intended to be comprehensive, their application is not. Policies that guide federal programs are a helpful foundation for what could be comprehensive risk management at the national level. State and local government would benefit from collaborative relationships with their federal counterparts to yield practical results in the field at the local level.

Planning and training activities for disaster management underpin the system at all levels of government, but full implementation is difficult to achieve. We prepare to respond with the inherent assumption that if we are prepared to respond quickly, efficiently, and effectively, recovery will follow naturally (CARRI, 2009). Expanding on that concept, Harvard Kennedy School research has explored disaster-management practice and has suggested strategic improvements in social welfare with more balanced investments in advance recovery planning and risk reduction (Leonard, 2010).This approach, when applied, promises improved outcomes in disaster situations because it pairs response activities with risk reduction. Eventually, resilience results from conditions that foster nimble and responsive actions in advance of disruptive events (Leonard and Howitt, 2010). The comprehensive risk-management approach provides the nation with a commonly understood and effective system of incident response to and early recovery from most disasters. The system can be flexible and adaptable, as demonstrated by specific problems identified and addressed during major disasters. Improvement plans are ideally made by governments in response to shortcomings identified during particular disasters. Application and implementation of policies is not always effective, as evidenced by poor response when disaster occurs. Emergency and disaster managers and responders may apply “just-in-time” practices to situations that warrant more complex and adaptive action.

COLLABORATION FOR RESILIENCE

Collaboration occurs through a variety of formal and informal arrangements. The committee’s use of the term collaboration refers to cooperative action. In this report, unless otherwise specified, the terms partnership, coalition, network, joint venture, and alliance refer to various types of organizations or mechanisms that enable collaboration in the broadest sense, regardless of the formality of the arrangement. Different sectors may identify these

21

See www.dhs.gov/xfoia/archives/gc_1157649340100.shtm (accessed June 21, 2010).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

terms differently. In the private sector, for example, partnerships and joint ventures imply contractual arrangements between organizations that include business plans with formalized marketing, finance, and operations components. The terms may be applied differently in other sectors.

How do notions of collaboration play into the building of disaster resilience? The term collaborate is defined by Merriam-Webster as “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor” and “to cooperate with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected.”22 Human affairs (and their history) can be understood in terms of collaboration. The human condition and the prospects for humanity’s future are determined not just by demographics, geography, the growth and nature of economies, the advance of science and technology, or a conjunction of critical moments in history with the emergence of heroic individuals. They depend in at least equal measure on how people, institutions, and sectors of institutions engage and work with each other in the array of human concerns and aspirations on scales from the local to the regional to the national to the global. The concept of collaboration is an organizing principle or lens with which to view society and suggests how things can be accomplished (Wright, 2001).

Unavoidable and sometimes unpredictable extreme natural events may result in disasters because of the decisions people make regarding societal land use and development, public safety and health, economic growth, protection of the environment, and geopolitical stability (e.g., Mileti, 1999). With proper decision making and preparation, however, disasters can be avoided or their effects mitigated. Events can be anticipated, and resilient societies factor them into planning and action. Both researchers and practitioners increasingly appreciate the intersection of collaboration and disasters and are paying greater attention to private–public collaboration to build community disaster resilience (CARRI, 2009).

THE COMMITTEE’S APPROACH TO ITS TASK

The recent popular work A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster (Solnit, 2009) describes how disaster can be the crucible for a community’s transformation. This committee’s task was to identify how communities can encourage that transformation, correct resource deficiencies, adopt beneficial public policies, and exercise practical means to elicit functional, community-based partnerships well before disaster strikes. To determine how this could be done, the committee convened, as part of its charge, a national workshop that brought together researchers and others from for-profit organizations, various levels of government, and citizen and volunteer organizations actively involved in collaborative approaches to community disaster resilience (NRC, 2010a). The

22

See www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/collaboration (accessed May 25, 2010).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

committee held three additional meetings to obtain input and to deliberate. Appendix B includes agendas for all open sessions.

The goals of the workshop were to elicit the best thinking on private–public sector partnership as a means to enhance community resilience at the levels most affected by natural and human-caused disasters. Discussions in the workshop played an essential part in the committee’s development of its recommendations. Having diverse stakeholders participate in discussion helped to bring to light a number of verifiable best practices as applied in numerous successful partnerships that crossed sector and jurisdictional boundaries.

The committee developed some presumptive principles that became the organizing themes for its workshop:

  • Collaboration is essential for community disaster resilience.

  • Private–public sector collaboration should include interjurisdictional organizations, diverse industry sectors, nongovernment organizations, and all elements of the community—not just government and the for-profit sector.

  • Community disaster resilience is essential for all phases of predisaster and post-disaster planning and action—from mitigation through long-term recovery.

Committee members wanted to test—through workshop discussions and testimony from practitioners, community leaders, and subject-matter experts—whether those themes were common to experience and practice. The workshop affirmed the principles, as documented in the workshop report (NRC, 2010a). Communities, academic institutions, and professional experts from across the country held similar notions about resilience and about how it can be promoted at the regional and local levels.

This study is one of multiple activities related to disaster resilience undertaken by the National Research Council (e.g., National Earthquake Resilience: Research, Implementation, and Outreach;23 NRC, 2006, 2007, 2009; Magsino, 2009; McCoy and Salerno, 2010). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies has addressed the issue of public health emergencies and community resilience. In a letter report addressing research priorities in emergency preparedness and response for public health systems, the IOM has called for research related to (1) the design and implementation of training for improved public health preparedness; (2) improved communications for the effective exchange of information with diverse audiences; (3) sustainable preparedness and response systems to identify factors that affect a community’s successful response to a crisis with public health consequences; and (4) criteria and metrics for the measurement of effectiveness and ef-

23

A current study. See www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/projectview.aspx?key=49048 for more information (accessed May 31, 2010).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
×

ficiency in the evaluation of public health emergency preparedness, response, and recovery (IOM, 2006). That committee found that:

The organization and operations of effective systems of public health preparedness need to be constituted to cope with a wide range of threats—the all-hazards approach—including catastrophic health events…. include state, local, tribal, and federal public health agencies; practitioners from emergency response and healthcare delivery systems; communities, homeland security and public safety, health-care delivery systems, employers and business, the media, academia, and individual citizens…. Public health emergencies will vary in scale, timing, predictability, and the potential to overwhelm routine capabilities and to disrupt the provision of daily life and health-care services. (IOM, 2006: 13)

This study is the first, however, to focus solely on community-level resilience and especially on the role of private–public collaboration in enhancing community-level disaster resilience.

REPORT ORGANIZATION

This report provides the reader with both a conceptual framework for community-level, resilience-focused private–public collaboration and guidance on how such collaboration may be established. The theoretical basis for private–public collaboration is provided in Chapter 2. The chapter lays out the committee’s primary assumptions and justifications regarding resilience and collaboration, the committee’s framework, and finally its conceptual model outlining the major elements of resilience-focused private–public collaboration. It also addresses how collaboration can work at the local or community level but in a multilevel context that spans local, state, and national organizations in both the private and public sectors. Chapter 3 provides guidelines to develop, implement, and evaluate collaboration at all levels. Chapter 4 summarizes challenges to the formation and maintenance of private–public collaboration including those associated with increasing capacity and access of vulnerable populations; perceptions of risk and uncertainty; scales of collaboration; trust and information sharing; diverging interests; lack of coordination; and lack of outcome measures. Chapter 5 identifies research that could advance knowledge and understanding the committee considers crucial to inform strategies for forming, maintaining, and supporting private–public collaboration.

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Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Research Council. 2011. Building Community Disaster Resilience Through Private-Public Collaboration. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13028.
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Next: 2 A Conceptual Framework for Resilience-Focused Private–Public Collaborative Networks »
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Natural disasters—including hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and floods—caused more than 220,000 deaths worldwide in the first half of 2010 and wreaked havoc on homes, buildings, and the environment. To withstand and recover from natural and human-caused disasters, it is essential that citizens and communities work together to anticipate threats, limit their effects, and rapidly restore functionality after a crisis.

Increasing evidence indicates that collaboration between the private and public sectors could improve the ability of a community to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Several previous National Research Council reports have identified specific examples of the private and public sectors working cooperatively to reduce the effects of a disaster by implementing building codes, retrofitting buildings, improving community education, or issuing extreme-weather warnings. State and federal governments have acknowledged the importance of collaboration between private and public organizations to develop planning for disaster preparedness and response. Despite growing ad hoc experience across the country, there is currently no comprehensive framework to guide private-public collaboration focused on disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.

Building Community Disaster Resilience through Private-Public Collaboration assesses the current state of private-public sector collaboration dedicated to strengthening community resilience, identifies gaps in knowledge and practice, and recommends research that could be targeted for investment. Specifically, the book finds that local-level private-public collaboration is essential to the development of community resilience. Sustainable and effective resilience-focused private-public collaboration is dependent on several basic principles that increase communication among all sectors of the community, incorporate flexibility into collaborative networks, and encourage regular reassessment of collaborative missions, goals, and practices.

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