Disaster
Resilience
A NATIONAL IMPERATIVE
Committee on Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters
Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under award number W912HQ-10-C-0071, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service under award number 09-DG-11221637’351, U.S. Department of Energy under award number DE-PI0000010, U.S. Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under award number DG-133R-08CQ0062, Department of Homeland Security HSHQDC-10-C-00087, Federal Emergency Management Agency under award number HSFEHQ-11-C-1642, Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey under award number G104P00079, National Aeronautics and Space Administration under award number NNXIOAN3IG, and Community and Regional Resilience Institute and Oak Ridge National Laboratory under award number 4000090613. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
ISBN-13: 978-0-309-26150-0
ISBN-10: 0-309-26150-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012953228
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. Charles M. Vest is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. Charles M. Vest are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council.
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Committee on Increasing National Resilience to Hazards and Disasters
Susan L. Cutter (Chair), Carolina Distinguished Professor and Director, Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute, University of South Carolina, Columbia
Maj. Gen. Joseph A. Ahearn (Retired), Senior Vice President, CH2M HILL Ltd, Colorado
Bernard Amadei, Professor of Civil Engineering, Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder
Patrick Crawford, Director of Disaster Services, Feeding America, Chicago, Illinois
Gerald E. Galloway, Jr., Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park
Michael F. Goodchild, Professor, Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara
Howard C. Kunreuther, James G. Dinan Professor of Decision Sciences & Public Policy, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Meredith Li-Vollmer, Risk Communication Specialist, Public Health Seattle and King County, Washington
Monica Schoch-Spana, Senior Associate, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland
Susan C. Scrimshaw, President, The Sage Colleges, Troy, New York
Ellis M. Stanley, Sr., Director of Western Emergency Management Services, Dewberry LLC, Atlanta, Georgia
Gene Whitney, Energy Research Manager, Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC
Mary Lou Zoback, Consulting Professor, Stanford University, Stanford, California
Staff
Lauren Alexander-Augustine, Associate Executive Director, Division on Earth and Life Studies, and Director, Disasters Roundtable
Elizabeth A. Eide, Director, Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, and Study Director
Neeraj P. Gorkhaly, Research Associate
Eric J. Edkin, Senior Program Assistant
John H. Brown, Program Associate
Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy
Richard N. Zare (Chair), Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science, Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, California
Linda M. Abriola (ex-officio), Dean of Engineering, Tufts University
Claude R. Canizares, Vice President for Research and Associate Provost and Bruno Rossi Professor of Experimental Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Moses H. W. Chan, Evan Pugh Professor of Physics, Pennsylvania State University
Ralph J. Cicerone (ex-officio), President, National Academy of Sciences
Paul Citron, Vice President (Retired), Technology Policy and Academic Relations, Medtronic, Inc.
Ruth A. David, President and Chief Executive Officer, ANSER (Analytic Services, Inc.)
Harvey V. Fineberg (ex-officio), President, Institute of Medicine
C. Dan Mote, Jr. (ex-officio), President Emeritus and Glenn Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, University of Maryland
Percy A. Pierre, Vice President and Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University
E. Albert Reece, Vice President for Medical Affairs, Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, School of Medicine, University of Maryland
Susan C. Scrimshaw, President, The Sage Colleges
William J. Spencer, Chairman Emeritus, SEMATECH
Michael S. Turner, Rauner Distinguished Service Professor, Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, The University of Chicago
Charles M. Vest (ex-officio), President, National Academy of Engineering Nancy S. Wexler, Higgins Professor of Neuropsychology, Columbia University
Staff
Kevin Finneran, Director
Tom Arrison, Program Officer
Neeraj P. Gorkhaly, Research Associate
Marion Ramsey, Administrative Associate
Preface
Disaster resilience is everyone’s business and is a shared responsibility among citizens, the private sector, and government. Increasing resilience to disasters requires bold decisions and actions that may pit short-term interests against longer-term goals. As a nation we have two choices. We can maintain the status quo and move along as we have for decades—addressing important, immediate issues such as the solvency of the National Flood Insurance Program, the most effective ways to discourage development in high-risk areas, and how to improve the speed and effectiveness disaster response. Or, we can embark on a new path—one that also recognizes and rewards the values of resilience to the individual, household, community, and nation. Such a path requires a commitment to a new vision that includes shared responsibility for resilience and one that puts resilience in the forefront of many of our public policies that have both direct and indirect effects on enhancing resilience.
The nation needs to build the capacity to become resilient, and we need to do this now. Such capacity building starts with individuals taking responsibility for their actions and moves to entire communities working in conjunction with local, state, and federal officials, all of whom need to assume specific responsibilities for building the national quilt of resilience. In the context of this report, the committee has used the term “community” in a very broad sense, encompassing the full range of potential communities—including local neighborhoods, family units, cities, counties, regions, or other entities. Defining a community as part of the nation’s sense of collective resilience is a very site-specific endeavor, and the committee wanted to address this report toward the many kinds of communities that exist across the country.
Enhancing the nation’s resilience to hazards and disasters is a laudable aspiration, but as is the case with such lofty goals, the devil is in the details. Although few would argue about the need to enhance the resilience of the nation and its communities to natural hazards, conflicts arise over how to move toward enhancing resilience, how to manage the costs of doing so, and how to assess its effectiveness. As we have seen, the costs of disasters are increasing as a function of more people and structures in harm’s way as well as the effects of the extreme events themselves. These costs are being incurred at a time when more and more communities are financially constrained and unable to pay for essential services such as public safety and education. The choices that local communities have to make are thus difficult and not without some pain. At the
same time, federal, state, and local governments have their own sets of constraints in terms of budget priorities, national interests, aging and declining infrastructure, and the political realities of implementing the kinds of changes needed to increase resilience. Disaster resilience may not be on the forefront of a political or institutional agenda until a disaster strikes one’s own community. Political will and strong leadership are therefore essential to build resilience at any level.
The full range of roles and responsibilities, the broad stakeholder constituency, and even the iterative nature of building resilience are reflected in the sponsorship for this study, in the committee composition (Appendix A), and the information-gathering process used during this study. The nine study sponsors play different roles in monitoring and research, provision of data, community leadership, emergency management, disaster response, and short-term recovery. The committee comprises individuals with expertise in physical science and engineering, geographical science, social and behavioral science, economics, and public health, with professional experience from research, public policy, emergency and disaster management, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and government service. In many ways, resilience emerges as a topic that unites different groups with the goals of creating a common dialogue, reducing losses, and decreasing vulnerability to hazards and disasters. The committee and sponsors reflect this unity of purpose.
For this study, “national” does not equate to “federal.” The stakeholders and audience for this study extend beyond the Washington, D.C. governmental community, and the experiential information necessary to understand national resilience lies in communities across the United States. To try to collect some of these regional experiences and information and the diversity of hazards faced in various parts of the country, the committee held three open meetings in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast; Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa; and Southern California (Appendix B). Although many of the examples in the report are drawn from these three regions, the ideas and lessons are applicable to many communities across the nation. Discussions in workshops held in each of these three regions were supplemented by field excursions in the local communities to collect vital information about the successes and challenges people and institutions face in their efforts to become resilient to disasters. These three regions of the country were selected by the committee because each possesses a large amount of direct experience in building resilience through disaster preparedness, absorbing and responding to disasters, and in disaster recovery, adaptation, and mitigation.
Although the committee discussed very specific issues and broad hazards and disaster policies, we made a decision to offer recommendations that we, as a committee, felt were actionable by local, state, and federal interests and stakeholders in the short, medium, and long term. Implementation of these recommendations requires bipartisan support and involvement by private interests as well as those in the nonprofit sector.
Enhancing the nation’s resilience will not be easy, nor will it be cheap. But the urgency is there and we need to begin the process now in order to build a national ethos that will make the nation safer, stronger, more secure, and more sustainable for our children and grandchildren.
Susan L. Cutter, Chair
July 2011
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Acknowledgments
In addition to its own expertise, the committee relied on input from numerous external professionals and members of the public with extensive experience in public policy, emergency and disaster management, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, government service, research, and personal and institutional responses to hazards and disaster events before, during, and after they occurred. These contributors provided data, references, and perspectives that assisted the committee in understanding the scope of the very broad issue of disaster resilience and the impact of decisions and actions that can increase or degrade the resilience of communities facing a variety of hazards and disasters. These individuals were very frank and open in providing important information to the committee without which it would have been impossible to develop this report. These individuals gave the committee distinct insights about what is happening at the local, state, and regional levels in terms of increasing disaster resilience.
We gratefully acknowledge these individuals and organizations and note that their thorough and helpful responses are brought forward throughout the report. The study’s sponsors, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Community and Regional Resilience Institute were particularly supportive and patient as the committee worked through this very challenging problem.
In addition, the committee would like to thank the following individuals who contributed to the study in different and meaningful ways:
In connection with the committee’s Gulf Coast meeting, we thank Charles Allen III, Knox Andress, Justin Augustine, John Barry, Steven Bingler, Tap Bui, Garcia Bodley, Paul Byers, Commissioner Mike Chaney, Craig Colten, Maria Elisa Mandarim de Lacerda, Joseph Donchess, Mayor Garcia and Fire Chief Smith of Waveland, Mississippi, Greg Grillo, Kimberley Hoppe, Bill Howell, Natalie Jayroe, Pam Jenkins, Bob Klemme, Mary Claire Landry, Shirley Laska, Doug Meffert, Stephen Murphy, Earthea Nance, Eric Nelson, Tracy Nelson, May Nguyen, Allison Plyer, Julie Rochman, Ommeed Sathe, Ronald Schumann III, Tracie Sempier, Bill Stallworth, Marcia St. Martin,
Jonathan Thompson, and Frank Wise; community members of Village de L’Est and the owner of the café in which we held our discussion in East New Orleans; the Knight Nonprofit Center including Alice Graham, John Hosey, John Kelly, Rupert Lacy, Tom Lansford, Reilly Morse, Kimberly Nastasi, and Lori West.
In connection with the committee’s meeting in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, Iowa, we thank Jerry Anthony, Nancy Beers, Dee Brown, Christine Butterfield, Clark Christensen, Amy Costliow, Luciana Cunha, Lt. General Ron Dardis, Steve Dummeruth, Dave Elgin, Mark English, Kamyar Enshayan, Mitch Finn, Bill Gardam, Greg Graham, Donna Harvey, Benjamin Hoover, Patty Judge, Cindy Kaestner, Witold Krajewski, Carmen Langel, Kevin Leicht, Adam Lindenlaub, Alan Macvey, Liz Mathis, Jeff McClaran, Dave Miller, Tom Moore, Cornelia Mutel, Laura Myers, Doug Neumann, Corinne Peek-Asa, Lisa Pritchard, Marizen Ramirez, John Beldon Scott, Drew Skogman, Kyle Skogman, Megan Snitkey, Kathleen Stewart, Peter Thorne, James Throgmorton, Achilleas Tsakiris, Clint Twedt-Ball, Courtney Twedt-Ball, Terry Vaughan, Chad Ware, Larry Weber, Michael Wichman, Chuck Wieneke, Emily White, Leslie Wright, and Rick Wulfekuhle.
In connection with the committee’s meeting in Irvine, California, we thank Mariana Amatullo, David Eisenman, Baruch Fischhoff, Alan Glennon, Mark Hansen, John Holmes, Lucy Jones, Sarah Karlinsky, Richard Little, Mike Morel, Javier Moreno, Leysia Palen, Chris Poland, Ezra Rapport, Roxanne Silver, Nalini Venkatasubramanian, and Matt Zook.
The helpful assistance we received with regard to planning and executing the field trips for the committee’s regional meetings was also critical. We recognize the contributions from Senator Mary Landrieu who shared her welcoming remarks to open our workshop in the Gulf Coast. We also recognize and thank the city of New Orleans and Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s office; the city of Cedar Rapids and Mayor Ron Corbett and City Manager Jeff Pomeranz; Cedar Rapids’ Community Development Department including Christine Butterfield and Adam Lindenlaub; Leslie Wright from the United Way of East Central Iowa; Larry Weber from the University of Iowa; and John Holmes and the Port of Los Angeles. Their excellent cooperation and efforts to provide access to necessary information and localities greatly informed the committee’s work.
At other stages of the study we also received very helpful contributions from Paul Brenner, Ben Billings, Laurie Johnson, Dennis Mileti, and Claire Rubin.
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s (NRC) Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review
comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report: Jacobo Bielak, Carnegie Mellon University; Christine Butterfield, City of Cedar Rapids-Iowa; Susan Curry, University of Iowa; Joseph Donovan, Beacon Hill Partners; Christopher Field, Carnegie Institution of Washington; Brian Flynn, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences; Stephen Flynn, Northeastern University; Sandro Galea, Columbia University; Edward George, Massachusetts General Hospital; Jack Harrald, Virginia Polytechnic University; Bryan Koon, Florida Division of Emergency Management; John Krueger, Cherokee Nation Health Service; Burrell Montz, East Carolina University; Christopher Poland, Degenkolb Engineers; Barbara Reynolds, Centers for Disease Control; and Adam Rose, University of Southern California.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Dr. Susan Hanson, Clark University (emeriti), and Dr. Mary Clutter, National Science Foundation (retired). Appointed by the NRC, they were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
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CONTENTS
1. THE NATION’S AGENDA FOR DISASTER RESILIENCE
The National Imperative to Increase Resilience
Resilience Defined and the Role of this Study
On the Nation’s Resilience Agenda
Decision Making Under Risk and Uncertainty
Risk Management Strategies and Measures
Improving Resilience Through Risk Management
3. MAKING THE CASE FOR RESILIENCE INVESTMENTS: THE SCOPE OF THE CHALLENGE
Challenge of Resilience Decision Making for Community Leaders
The Scale and Scope of Disasters and Disaster Losses—An Urgent Problem
4. MEASURING PROGRESS TOWARD RESILIENCE
The Need for Metrics and Indicators
Measures of U.S. National Resilience
International Efforts to Measure Resilience
Summary and Recommendation: Implementing a Measurement System
5. BUILDING LOCAL CAPACITY AND ACCELERATING PROGRESS: RESILIENCE FROM THE BOTTOM UP
Linking Private and Public Infrastructure Interests
Communication to Build Resilience
Zoning and Building Codes and Standards
Research and Information Needs
6. THE LANDSCAPE OF RESILIENCE POLICY: RESILIENCE FROM THETOP DOWN
Existing Federal Policies That Strengthen Resilience
State and Local Authorities and Policies
Unintended Consequences: Policies and Practices That Negatively Impact Resilience
Resilience Policy Gaps and Needs
Summary, Findings, and Recommendation
7. PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER: LINKING COMMUNITIES AND GOVERNANCE TO GUIDE NATIONAL RESILIENCE
8. BUILDING A MORE RESILIENT NATION: THE PATH FORWARD
A. Committee and Staff Biographical Information