“What Constitutes Disaster Recovery?“
By Jim Mullen
Disaster recovery is often messy, complicated. Frequently post disaster news stories circulate about the absence of a satisfactory post-disaster recovery – many lives remain disrupted; economic stability for many survivors is elusive, sometimes for years. The news cycle, and government attention, wanes far too soon, while people still are hurting. And it is not uncommon for resentment to persist because the recovery mission appears to have been shortchanged.
While a local emergency manager in Seattle I asked a federal official – “when is post-disaster recovery achieved,” and “who decides?” His answer: “when there is no further demand on federal resources.” My response was “so we’re ok when you say we are? ”
As Washington State EMD director I often referenced the need for local and state governments to expand upon the economic aspects of recovery and address the necessity for “restoration or reestablishment of what I refer to as the “social equilibrium” of a community, region, even a state.
In spring of 2006, I led a contingent of state officials to Mississippi to meet with the Mississippi redevelopment team formed several weeks after Hurricane Katrina the previous summer. Their recommendation – start planning for recovery now: starting their recovery planning efforts after the fact had them “running from behind.” This resulted in a series of good-faith mistakes and/or omissions that could have been avoided with some serious advance planning.
Shortly before my retirement from EMD my excellent staff designed an organization chart depicting a variety of recovery priorities that merited attention and implementation in advance of a significant disaster. That organization chart assumed a governor or local executive could marshal a broad coalition of forces to organize a recovery team comprised of legislative leaders (from both parties). Also included would be legal experts, like the attorney general and/or their local counterparts, as well as private sector folks like investment bankers, manufacturers, employee unions, religious and education leaders, etc. to establish the respective “lanes” of interest. Senior officials from the public and private sectors would guide (or referee!!) periodic discussions covering the wide range of post-disaster concerns that could emerge. Pre-disaster recovery -oriented exercises would illuminate major issues, hopefully setting aside partisan political interests. Unfortunately, that attempt to develop an advance recovery structure for our state achieved inadequate support from our leadership.
Hope springs eternal, however. The new Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction at Pierce College appears poised to model and train toward the notion that recovery is a complex, critical enterprise that extends far beyond the basic economic considerations typically emphasized. That seems a worthy and long overdue contribution toward eliminating the growing trust deficit between government and its constituents. It should be embraced, supported and permitted to thrive.
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Jim Mullen has spent 3 decades in emergency management, including 12 years at the local level as director of the City of Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management and 8 and a half years as Washington State’s Emergency Management Division Director. Jim retired from state service in March 2013. Jim also served as President of the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) from January 2011 to October 2012.
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