Unrealistic Expectations

The following is offered by Dr. John Plodinec, Associate Director for Community Resilience Certification at CARRI and Science Advisor, Savannah River National Laboratory.

In the previous posting, I pointed out that the new reality of constrained resources created by the Great Recession makes the need for a community resilience framework more pressing than ever before. In this post, I’ll discuss another major reason a community resilience framework is needed now: the unrealistic expectations that have resulted from recent disasters.

In the aftermath of 9/11, and especially after Hurricane Katrina, a large portion of the populace seems to believe that the federal government should and can be the “White Knight” that charges in after a disaster and returns the community to normalcy. This belief has been reinforced by recent federal bailouts to financial institutions and automakers, and mirrors some of the rhetoric surrounding the health care debate.

Many current plans for emergency response and recovery reflect other facets of the same problem. For example, too many plans expect that the community’s behavior will conform to directives from the community’s leaders. And yet opinion polls in several locales have shown that large portions of the populace in hurricane-prone areas say they won’t leave no matter what they are told.

Further, plans made before the Great Recession most likely reflect the resources available when they were drawn up, not what the community actually has available to it now or in the near future. As I discussed in my last post, financial resources are likely to be limited for several years. But money isn’t the only constrained resource; the human capital needed for recovery is facing a major turnover. Even before the Great Recession, both the public and private sectors were concerned about how they were going to replace the experience of the Baby Boomers when they retired (in fact, almost 60% of the public sector workforce is likely to retire in the next ten years, while “only” 40% of the private workforce will). As an example, in Charleston, SC, we are now seeing the retirement of the generation who helped Charleston recover so rapidly after Hurricane Hugo. While there are highly capable replacements, in many cases they have not had to cope with the unexpected in real time, under extreme duress and stress. Thus, plans that assume a cadre of experienced leaders may need to be rethought.

Thus, our communities must build a new set of expectations – and a new basis for planning – that reflect the new realities of the Great Recession and the passing of the baton from the Baby Boomers to a new generation of leaders. A community resilience framework can help to accomplish this in several ways:

• It can help a community’s leaders to identify all of the resources actually available, and thus adjust their expectations. The new reality means that communities will have to mobilize much more of the resources available in their own communities – public, non-governmental, and private.
• It can help a community’s leaders communicate their expectations to the public, and to learn what their public’s expectations are. In some cases, this will lead to significant changes in plans. In others, this use of a community framework will mean that individual citizens will see the need to take more responsibility to limit losses.
• As a corollary, the use of a community resilience framework can increase the likelihood that a community’s plans will be more consistent with those of its citizens and businesses, enabling a more efficient and rapid recovery.
• A framework can help new leaders see the entire breadth of their communities, how their communities are structured, and find their place in communication networks.

Thus, our communities need a framework for community resilience. As they face the new reality created by the Great Recession and the retirement of the Baby Boomers, they need it now.

Impacts of the Great Recession on Communities

The following is offered by Dr. John Plodinec, Associate Director for Community Resilience Certification at CARRI and Science Advisor, Savannah River National Laboratory.

In previous postings, I’ve tried to present trends that pointed to the need for a community resilience framework. These trends (growing complexity of communities, the new spectrum of hazards facing communities, and the accelerating rate of change) by themselves make the case for the need for a community resilience framework. In this posting and the next, I’ll examine reasons why we need such a framework NOW – first the impacts of the Great Recession, and then the unrealistic expectations of so many of our citizens.

The Great Recession of the last two+ years has created a new reality for communities. The resources that communities, states, and the federal government have available for disaster recovery may not be there for the next disaster. Across the country, tax revenues are falling. At least 35 states expect to have budget shortfalls this year; last year, 49 out of the 50 actually did. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that translated to almost 300,000 less workers in government in December, 2009, than a year before – and at least 17 states already have announced they will reduce staff again this year. This year, the National Debt is expected to approach 90% of our national GDP. We just don’t have the money - or the human resources - to repeat the recovery from Katrina (cost $230B and counting), at least not the way we’ve done it before.

And it does not look like the economic picture will significantly improve any time soon. Only the most glowing – and unrealistic – projections of our economy lead to reductions of more than a percent a year in unemployment over the next decade. These rosy assumptions fly in the face of the projections of many economists that we will see another economic dip within the next two years.

Overlaid on this economic bad news (no wonder economics is known as the Dismal Science!) is a ticking time bomb: the retirement of the Baby Boomers. Projections made five years ago were that the Medicare and Medicaid expenses alone would be at least 10 times the national debt (currently $12.3 T). But some nice work done by our colleague Dr. Andy Felts of the College of Charleston suggests that the costs may be even higher. Using data from Charleston County, SC, Andy showed that the per capita cost of providing county services to seniors (those 65 or greater) was rising almost twice as fast as for everyone else. These cost increases are expected to accelerate as the Baby Boomers become so-called “Super Seniors” (75 or older). We’re hearing similar projections across the country.

Thus, national economic recovery will be protracted, with no guarantee of complete success. Resources for recovery are likely to be constrained and harder to obtain. This puts a real premium on community efficiency: more precisely identifying the resources a community will need to recover from future disasters – before disaster strikes – so that the community can rapidly secure them after a disaster.

A community resilience framework can help improve community efficiency in several ways:

• Communities can more accurately predict what will be lost, i.e., what internal resources might not be available, and – of equal importance – what resources ought to be available within the community that can be utilized. For example, separating debris by disposal categories (e.g., separating “green” waste – downed trees, for example – from white wares can lead to big savings to communities in disposal costs. However, it is very expensive to do if all of the waste is aggregated. If the community prepares its citizens to carry out this task after the disaster it can save both segregation and disposal costs.
• Communities can identify sources of funding for recovery, and the requirements associated with them. Too many communities have built their plans on the expectation of federal funds only to find that they had to repay the federal government because they hadn’t complied with a particular agency’s rules. As you are reading this, meetings between FEMA and communities in Mississippi and Alabama are being held to decide how much of the Stafford Act funding moved so expeditiously after Katrina must now be paid back because of poor accounting or documentation practices.
• Communities can prioritize the sources of funds they pursue.
• Communities can assess how well they can use the resources, and streamline their systems to remove bottlenecks.

Thus, the Great Recession has created a new reality of constrained resources that communities must face. A community resilience framework can help communities survive and thrive even in this new era of constrained resources.

The Accelerating Rate of Change

The following is offered by Dr. John Plodinec, Associate Director for Community Resilience Certification at CARRI and Science Advisor, Savannah River National Laboratory.


In my previous post on the need for a national framework for community resilience, I focused on the new spectrum of hazards facing American communities. In this post, I’d like to look at another reason why a national framework is needed – the accelerating rate of change.

As I’ve noted earlier, in early American communities the pace of change was relatively slow – communities usually could adapt to emerging trends and new hazards at their own pace. A person in his prime in 1700 would not be all that uncomfortable in the America of 1800 (unless, of course, he was a violent royalist!). A city dweller in her prime in 1800 might be overwhelmed with all of the new technologies (street lights, streetcars, horseless carriages!) in the world of 1900, but her country cousin would still be able to recognize her world of 1800 in that of 1900. In today’s techno centric world, the accelerating rate of technological change means that those in their prime in 1900 would face a completely unfamiliar – and perhaps terrifying - world.

As noted in an excellent report by Susi Moser and Shanna Ratner (“Community Resilience and Wealth….”), available at the US Endowment for Forestry and Communities, http://www.usendowment.org/communityresilience.html, rural communities are now faced with the need to adapt, or re-invent, themselves every fifteen years. Why is that?

As technologies change, the businesses in a community are faced with a decision of whether to adopt new, or adapt existing technologies to meet their markets’ evolving needs. If they choose to adopt, they face the certainty of increased capital costs and the uncertainty of the value of the new technology. If they choose not to adopt new technologies, they run the risk of imitating the US steel industry after World War II, which was nearly destroyed by a Japan that eagerly embraced new technology.

Businesses making bad choices can start the clock ticking on a time bomb laid at the foundations of a community. We have only to look at how communities in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana are struggling to reinvent themselves in light of the poor choices made by the carmakers. Or how rural communities in the Southeast are struggling to survive in light of the new challenges facing them.

Communities dependent on furniture manufacturing provide an ideal example. Ten years ago, Mississippi produced more wooden furniture than anywhere else in the nation. However, the American furniture industry was very slow to adopt new technologies, for example robots to automate production. Conversely, their competitors in China aggressively pursued these new technologies, and now have captured much of the American market. As a result, many communities in northern Mississippi and Alabama are facing tremendous challenges because of an eroded tax base and a workforce mostly looking for work.

A resilience framework can help a community to successfully adapt to change. First, it should help a community identify its vulnerabilities, whether that is dependence on a single company or industry, or a poorly maintained bridge, or lack of a flexible workforce. The framework should then help the community look at the resources it has and identify actions it can take to reduce those vulnerabilities. A wise community will use these insights to reinvent itself – and reinvest in itself. The result – more resilient communities, better able to respond to change.