When CARRI began its investigation into the status of resilience thinking, research and policy development, the idea of resilience was not a concept in good standing at the Department of Homeland Security or in the White House. While there was growing energy among outside groups around the concept of resilience as an alternative to protection (see CARRI’s May 5, 2009 blog posting), the discussions were very limited and frequently somewhat acrimonious. It seems clear, however, that the landscape is shifting rapidly. The President has announced that there will be an office within the Homeland Security Council for resilience. Secretary Napolitano speaks of making the federal government an “engaged facilitator of long-term community recovery.” The designee to be Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology, Dr. Tara O’Toole has made community resilience one of her primary goals. Resilience appears to be not just a concept in good standing but is quickly becoming a focus of policy thought. I think this is good.
There is apparently some confusion about what CARRI means by a common framework for community resilience (see CARRI’s May 18, 2009 blog posting). This confusion is generating a healthy internal discussion. In an effort to broaden that discussion, I offer my first draft of a definition.
COMMON FRAMEWORK FOR COMMUNITY DISASTER RESILIENCE: a widely accepted, coherent, measurable, way of understanding community disaster resilience and applying that understanding to a community in a meaningful way. A common framework would include objective, measurable, commonly accepted indicators; a practical assessment methodology to fairly, transparently and accurately assess the ability to return to normal; and processes facilitated by validated tools that allow the results of the assessment to be translated into actions that increase a community’s resilience.
Comments welcome!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I would like to introduce these excerpts from various publications which identify a very significant problem:
ReplyDelete- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): Durability by Design Report: "From past scientific surveys of hurricane damage, it can be seen that damage to roofing and water damage to contents are the most frequent and costly repairs..... It can be seen that the most significant forms of damage were associated with roofing loss."
- Air Force News (US Army Corps of Engineer's Blue Roof Project):
"More than 81,000 roofs in Louisiana and more than 152,000 buildings within an 82,000-square-mile area stretching from Texas to Alabama received temporary roofing following the two hurricanes that pounded more than 500 miles of the Gulf Coast region.”
- Roofing Industry Committee on Weather Issues (RICOWI): The "Team 3" investigation and report begins on page 117 and explains their findings: "In many cases of roof damage, the frequency of fastener attachment was not adequate to resist Katrina’s winds."
-Asphalt Roofing Manufactures Association
80% of U.S. structures use asphalt shingles
- Air Force News (US Army Corps of Engineer's Blue Roof Project):
“A team of more than 700 engineers and other volunteers from throughout 41 Army Corps of Engineers districts worldwide wrapped up a seven-month mission to provide temporary repairs to both residential and public building roofs damaged by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina,…"
These publications and others, demonstrate the significance roofing can play in recovery and its importance in mitigation efforts.
I am the CEO of a very small (for profit) company in North Carolina that has conducted some simple, yet promising, proof of concept tests on the incorporation of hook and loop material (commonly referred to as Velcro™) as an alternative installation method for steep slope roofing.
By replacing the "nailing" and seal down strip method to affix roof coverings to a structure and replacing it with a method that does not require penetration of the exterior water barrier we can better protect the underlying structural components from the potential leakage which can be associated with nails and/or staples.
Additionally, the roof coverings will be provided with more areas of attachment to the structure and to one another, at all points with the exception of the exposed portion. This method can also interlock the entire roofing system together and to the structure, providing more resistance to uplift and/ or the peeling effect of high winds. Additionally this method can provide for a unique ability of reattachment, if winds are substantial enough to lift the roof coverings, during a lull in those forces.
During a portion of our proof of concept testing, we subjected a rather simply constructed prototype to the focused jet spray of a fire hose, under maximum pressure and from a distance of approximately 3 to 4ft. The fire hose was attached to a local fire department fire engine and it produced 125 gallons of water per minute (2.08333e gallons of water per second) under 125 psi. The fire hose could not remove the shingles of the prototype and only presented an area of approximately 1 to 1 ½ inches of water penetration, in the form of droplets, on the overlap portion of an underlying shingle.
We have built a collaborative network of companies, non-profits and a University to assist us with the research, development and testing of this technology and we are actively seeking Federal, State and other funding opportunities to continue forward with our research.
We are hopeful our project can play a role in "improved recovery through improved mitigation" and the "new normal".
Please feel free to review the information available on our website at : http://naimcorporation.com/ and submit questions and/or comments to info@naimcorporation.com