Community Resilience: Long-Term Recovery

FEMA has formed a working group to examine policies and practices for disaster recovery. The effort is welcome and long overdue. As a part of the input to the working group, there is an invitation to the public at large to comment by providing answers to a series of questions. (I have noted in the past that current FEMA leadership seems to be committed to listening. This is another welcome indication.) Thoughtful answers to FEMA’s recovery questions from across America will be helpful in shaping good recovery policies and programs.

A fundamental question is how to define a successful disaster recovery. CARRI believes that successful disaster recovery begins well before a disaster occurs with a deliberate and well thought out plan to achieve community recovery. Successful disaster recovery addresses all domains of community life – economic, social, ecological and physical systems – meeting the needs of the full fabric of the community in a sustainable and inclusive manner. While speed of recovery is important, thoughtful consideration to reduce vulnerabilities for future events is also required. Successful recovery includes adaptation where weaknesses can be identified and corrected as part of the recovery process in order to make the community more resilient to future incidents. Over time, successful disaster recovery should increase community functionality above pre-disaster levels so that recovery after the next disaster is less costly and more rapid. The ideal process for community recovery facilitates and is in harmony with long-term community goals.

We believe that there are three primary characteristics that influence the speed and quality of successful recoveries. First, resilient communities have deliberate plans for recovery in the same way that they have deliberate disaster response and emergency management plans. They plan in detail how the community will achieve a rapid return to normal. Second, successful disaster recoveries involve the full fabric of the community in every phase of their approach to recovery: planning, preparedness, response, and short- and long-term recovery. Third, successful recoveries involve broad-based use of formal and informal (official and unofficial) communication networks to facilitate recovery processes and involvement. These networks are identified and rehearsed before the disaster and thereby extend the reach and impact of formal, official communications. They also include all parts and domains of the community. The informal, unofficial networks are incorporated into official, long-term recovery communication networks.

These systematic examinations by FEMA of federal policies and programs that will ultimately influence community resilience are very welcome. We should support them fully and thoughtfully.