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8
Building a More Resilient Nation: The Path Forward
Natural and human-induced disasters carry with them the potential for
injuries and death, displacement of people, loss of homes and land, disruptions
in transportation, business interruption, job losses, and greater demands on
federal, state, and local resources. Against the backdrop of the nation's aging
infrastructure, inconsistent adoption and enforcement of building codes, and
health and economic disparities, the future impacts of global population growth
and movement, complex and interdependent global commerce and economic
systems, and changing climate demand greater resilience to disasters to help
decrease disaster-related losses and to increase the nation's physical, social,
cultural, economic, and environmental health.
This chapter draws together the six recommendations made in earlier
chapters and provides suggestions as to how these recommendations might be
implemented. The committee has indicated that the necessary first step to
increased resilience is to establish a national "culture of resilience" which
includes a full and clear commitment to disaster resilience by the federal
government.
Recommendation 1: Federal agencies should incorporate national resilience
as a guiding principle to inform the mission and actions of the federal
government and the programs it supports at all levels.
This recommendation embodies an approach that includes development
of a national vision and a national strategy toward a more resilient nation, and a
set of short- and long-term implementation steps to achieve this goal including:
(a) Development of the resilience vision;
(b) Development of communication strategies for promoting resilience
among federal, state, and local governments, communities, and the
private sector;
(c) Analysis of appropriate investment strategies for increasing
resilience;
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210 DISASTER RESILIENCE: A NATIONAL IMPERATIVE
(d) Establishment of processes for interagency coordination for data
and resilience metrics;
(e) Establishment of incentives for increasing resilience; and
(f) Conducting periodic reviews of federal agency progress toward
increasing resilience (see Chapter 7 for details).
The committee established early in Chapter 1 a vision of some of the
characteristics that might describe a "Resilient Nation in 2030." Using the
information contained in this report, we expand upon this vision of
characteristics of a "Resilient Nation in 2030" as part of the platform from
which the vision and strategy for a resilient nation could be developed with
leadership from the federal government (Box 8.1). The findings and five
recommendations that follow Box 8.1 frame key actions that can help guide the
nation in advancing collective, resilience-enhancing efforts to fulfill the national
resilience vision the committee recommends be established.
BOX 8.1
Characteristics of a Resilient Nation in 2030
The nation, from individuals to the highest levels of government, has
embraced a "culture of resilience." Information on risks to and vulnerability of
individuals and communities is transparent and easily accessible to all.
Proactive investments and policy decisions, including those for preparedness,
mitigation, response, and recovery, have reduced the loss of lives, costs, and
socioeconomic impacts of disasters. Community coalitions are widely
organized, recognized, and supported to provide essential services before and
after disasters occur. Recovery after disasters is rapid and includes funding from
private capital. The per-capita federal cost of responding to disasters has been
declining for a decade.
Key elements of this culture of resilience include
· Individuals and communities realize that they provide their own first line of
defense against disasters.
· National leadership in resilience is implemented by policy decisions,
funding, and actions throughout all federal agencies and Congress.
· Federal, state, and regional investment in and support for community-led
resilience efforts are pervasive.
· Site-specific information on risk is readily available, transparent, and
effectively communicated. This information has triggered dialogue within
communities regarding the risks they face and how best to actively prepare
for and manage them.
· Based on risk information, zoning ordinances are enacted and enforced that
protect critical functions and help communities reap the benefit of natural
defenses to natural hazards (e.g., floodplains, coastal wetlands, sand dunes).
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BUILDING A MORE RESILIENT NATION 211
· Building codes and retrofit standards have been widely adopted and are
strictly enforced.
· A significant proportion of post-disaster recovery is funded through private
capital and insurance payouts.
· Insurance premiums are risk based, and private insurers provide substantial
premium reductions for buildings meeting current codes or retrofit
standards.
· To speed recovery, community coalitions have developed contingency plans
for governance and business continuity as well as for providing services,
particularly for the most vulnerable populations.
· Post-disaster recovery is greatly accelerated by sufficient redundancy in
infrastructure upgraded and hardened to take into account regional
interdependencies.
Also included in these characteristics of a resilient nation (but well beyond the
scope of recommendations) are a vibrant and diverse economy and citizenry
who are safer, healthier, and better educated than previous generations.
The five recommendations below recognize that achieving resilience
requires efforts and actions by individuals, families, communities, all levels of
government, the private sector, academia, and community-based organizations
including the nonprofit and faith-based groups. The process for improving
resilience is dynamic, adaptive, and transparent and acknowledges the existence
of interconnected and interdependent sets of social, economic, natural, and
manmade systems that support communities. Recognition that events and their
consequences do not adhere to geopolitical borders is also important. Embedded
in each recommendation is also the need to continue long-term, prudent science
and technology resilience research innovations.
The recommendations recognize that while physical resilience is a
foundation, human resilience is the engine that drives the ability to absorb,
recover from, and adapt to adverse events. No single sector or entity has
ultimate responsibility for creating the foundation and driving the engine of
resilience. These are shared responsibilities.
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212 DISASTER RESILIENCE: A NATIONAL IMPERATIVE
Risk Management and Reduction (from Chapters 2 and 5)
Finding: A variety of complementary structural and nonstructural
measures exist to manage disaster risk. Risk management is, at its foundation, a
community decision, and the risk management approach will only be effective if
community members commit to using the risk management tools and measures
available. Examples from actual disasters and their aftermaths, such as the June
2008 flood in Cedar Rapids, show that implementation of risk management
strategies involves a combination of actors in local, state, and federal
government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), researchers, the private
sector, and individuals in the neighborhood community. Each will have
different roles and responsibilities in developing the risk management strategy
and in characterizing and implementing measures or tools, whether structural or
nonstructural, to be added to the community's risk management portfolio.
Some strategies can be implemented over the short term, whereas others may
take a longer time.
Recommendation 2: The public and private sectors in a community should
work cooperatively to encourage commitment to and investment in a risk
management strategy that includes complementary structural and
nonstructural risk-reduction and risk-spreading measures or tools.
The portfolio of tools should seek equitable balance among the needs
and circumstances of individuals, businesses, and government, as well as the
community's economic, social, and environmental resources. Among the most
promising actions that would achieve results are in the areas of building codes
and standards, and insurance.
Steps for Implementation:
Federal agencies, together with local and regional partners, researchers,
professional groups, and the private sector can develop an essential framework
(codes, standards, and guidelines) that drives the critical structural functions of
resilience. Furthermore, cooperative work between the public and private
sectors can encourage investment in nonstructural risk reduction measures such
as insurance premiums; such premiums can include multiyear policies tied to the
property with premiums reflecting risk. Specific focus on (a) building codes and
standards and (b) insurance carry promise toward implementing this
recommendation.
Finding 2a: Building codes and standards are effective in mitigating
and reducing disaster risk to communities. For example, research and practice
have demonstrated the value of building new homes to code and to increased
standards in areas that may experience high winds or hurricanes. Of 13 homes
built to a Fortified standard (Fortified standard is an increased building
standard--above regular code--developed by the Institute for Business and
Home Safety) on the Bolivar Peninsula, Texas, before Hurricane Ike, 10
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BUILDING A MORE RESILIENT NATION 213
survived that disaster. However, codes and standards have some variability due
to the nature of local hazards; across the nation, codes and standards are
unevenly enforced and many people do not know they exist. In addition to
codes and standards, guidelines, certifications, and practices can also be
effective in fostering resilience.
Recommendation 2a: Federal agencies, together with local and regional
partners, researchers, professional groups, and the private sector should
develop an essential framework (codes, standards, and guidelines) that
drive the critical structural functions of resilience. This framework should
include national standards for infrastructure resilience and guidelines for land
use and other structural mitigation options, especially in known hazard areas
such as floodplains. The Department of Homeland Security is an appropriate
agency to help coordinate this government-wide activity. The adoption and
enforcement of this framework at the local level should be strongly encouraged
by the framework document.
Finding 2b: Investments in risk-spreading or risk-reducing measures
through insurance and other financial instruments can facilitate mitigation,
including the relocation of businesses, residences, and infrastructure out of
hazard-prone areas. Vouchers given to lower-income property owners currently
residing in hazard-prone areas could allow these property owners to afford all-
hazards insurance; home improvement loans could be used to spread the upfront
cost of risk reduction and mitigation measures over time; and seals of approval
could be used to show that the property meets mitigation standards, thus
enhancing its potential resale value.
Recommendation 2b: The public and private sectors should encourage
investment in risk-based pricing of insurance in which insurance premiums
are designed to include multiyear policies tied to the property with
premiums reflecting risk. Such risk-based pricing reduces the need for public
subsidies of disaster insurance. Risk-based pricing clearly communicates to
those in hazard-prone areas the different levels of risk that they face. Use of
risk-based pricing could also reward mitigation through premium reductions and
could apply to both privately and publicly funded insurance programs.
National Disaster Loss Data (Chapter 3)
Finding: The ability to measure and evaluate the assets of communities
and to understand the economic and human value of resilience is critical to
improving disaster resilience. Because the assets of a community involve more
than the high-value essential assets such as hospitals and utilities, but also
include other resources with high social, cultural, and environmental value,
decision-making models developed by communities have to involve both
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214 DISASTER RESILIENCE: A NATIONAL IMPERATIVE
quantitative and qualitative "valuation" of assets in order to prioritize resilience
investments.
In developing the case for enhancing resilience now and providing
motivation for community decision makers to understand their inventory of
assets and the ways in which they interact with one another, the historical spatial
and temporal patterns of economic and human disaster losses on communities in
the United States is important. Although the data available to assess economic
and human losses nationally are conservative and are neither comprehensive nor
centrally archived for the nation, the historical patterns of economic losses from
hazards and disasters in the United States appear to be increasing and will be
difficult to absorb, if allowed to continue. Without an all-hazards national
repository for hazard event and loss data, estimates of how much or where losses
are increasing or decreasing are difficult to make with any degree of statistical
confidence. This lack of data compromises the ability of communities to make
informed decisions about resilience-building strategies.
Recommendation 3: A national resource of disaster-related data should be
established that documents injuries, loss of life, property loss, and impacts
on economic activity. Such a database will support efforts to develop more
quantitative risk models and better understand structural and social
vulnerability to disasters. To improve access to these data, the principle of
open access should be recognized in all relevant federal data management
policies. The data should be made accessible through an Internet portal
maintained either by a designated agency or by an independent entity such as a
university. The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in the White
House would be an appropriate entity to convene federal and state agencies,
private actors, NGOs, and the research community to develop strategies and
policies in support of these data-collection and maintenance goals.
Steps for Implementation:
(a) NSTC, or a federal body with a similar capacity, could convene federal
agencies, private actors, and the research community to improve post-event
data collection and public access to such data. Likely federal actors include
the Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
(b) Federal agencies, together with the private sector and research community,
could determine essential data, standards, and protocols to employ, and
which agencies are best positioned to collect and archive specific data on
the impacts of hazards. Such an approach helps to avoid duplication of
efforts.
(c) Biennial status reports coordinated by the NSTC on the nation's resilience
could be based on analysis of these data and could include priorities for
future data collection and dissemination.
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BUILDING A MORE RESILIENT NATION 215
National Resilience Scorecard (Chapter 4)
Finding: Without some numerical basis for assessing resilience, it
would be difficult to monitor changes or show that community resilience has
improved. At present, no consistent basis for such measurement exists.
Recommendation 4: The Department of Homeland Security in conjunction
with other federal agencies, state and local partners, and professional
groups should develop a National Resilience Scorecard.
Steps for Implementation:
(a) General considerations:
· The scorecard should be readily adaptable to the needs of communities
and levels of government, focusing specifically on the hazards that
threaten each community.
· The scorecard should not attempt unreasonable precision, either in the
ways in which individual factors are measured, or in the ways they are
combined into composite indicators. Rather, qualitative and
quantitative measures should be mingled, and reduced where
appropriate to ordinal (rankings) rather than interval or ratio scales.
(b) Specific dimensions of the scorecard might include
· Indicators of the ability of critical infrastructure and businesses to
recover rapidly from impacts;
· Social factors that enhance or limit a community's ability to recover,
including social capital, language, and socioeconomic status;
· Indicators of the ability of buildings and other structures to withstand
earthquakes, floods, severe storms, and other disasters;
· Indicators of the ability of businesses and markets to recover; and
· Factors that capture the special needs of individuals and groups, related
to minority status, mobility, or health status.
Support and Establish Community Coalitions (Chapter 5)
Finding: Resilience requires reinforcement of our physical
environment--the buildings and critical infrastructure that constitute the
communities in which people live. It also requires the strengthening of the
nation's social infrastructure--the local community networks that can mobilize
to plan, make decisions, and communicate effectively. The principal action
through which a local community could vastly accelerate progress toward
enhanced resilience of its social and physical infrastructure is the establishment
of a problem-solving coalition of local leaders from public and private sectors,
with ties to and support from federal and state governments, and with input from
the broader citizenry. The charge of such a coalition is to assess the
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216 DISASTER RESILIENCE: A NATIONAL IMPERATIVE
community's exposure and vulnerability to risk, educating and communicating
about risk, and evaluating and expanding its capacity to handle such risk. A truly
robust coalition has at its core a strong leadership and governance structure, with
a person or persons with adequate time, skill, and dedication necessary for the
development and maintenance of relationships among all partners.
Recommendation 5: Federal, state, and local governments should support
the creation and maintenance of broad-based community resilience
coalitions at local and regional levels. Such coalitions can help communities
promulgate and implement the proposed national resilience standards and
guidelines for communities, and to assist them in the development and
completion of the proposed National Resilience Scorecard.
Steps for Implementation:
(a) Assessment by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department
of Health and Human Services--to the extent that these two agencies
administer state and local grant programs to bolster national preparedness
capabilities--of present federal funding frameworks and technical guidance.
Such an assessment could gauge whether communities have sufficient
support and incentive to adopt collaborative problem-solving approaches
toward disaster resilience and emergency management.
(b) Adoption by communities of collaborative problem-solving approaches in
which all private and public stakeholders (e.g., businesses, NGOs,
community-based organizations, and faith-based organizations) are partners
in identifying hazards, developing mitigation strategies, communicating
risk, contributing to disaster response, and setting recovery priorities. The
emergency management community is an integral part of these discussions,
with potential to take a leadership role.
(c) Commitment by state and local governments to ensure that modern zoning
laws and building codes are adopted and enforced.
(d) Commitment by state and local governments to secure adequate personnel
to create and sustain publicprivate resilience partnerships, to promulgate
and implement proposed national resilience standards and guidelines for
communities, and to assist communities in the completion of the proposed
national resilience scorecard.
Federal Policy Review (Chapter 6)
Finding: The development of appropriate policies, creation of optimal
governance structures, and informed and coordinated management at all levels
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BUILDING A MORE RESILIENT NATION 217
of government are crucial to improving community resilience. Community
resilience will grow as the knowledge, experience, and understanding of these
roles and responsibilities grow among decision makers at all levels of
government.
Currently, a multitude of activities, programs, and policies exist at
local, state, and federal levels to address some part of resilience for the nation.
Several of the critical processes, such as land-use planning and building code
enforcement, are the responsibility of local groups or governments. The federal
policy role is primarily to ensure that resilience policies are nationally consistent
and to provide information and best practices for development of appropriate
policies at all levels. Consideration of potential unintended consequences of a
new policy with respect to disaster resilience is also important.
The nation does not have an overall vision or coordinating strategy for
resilience. Recent work on homeland security and disaster reduction are good
beginnings, but the current suite of policies, practices, and decisions affecting
resilience are conducted on an ad hoc basis with little formal communication,
coordination, or collaboration. In fact, some policies, decisions and practices
actually erode resilience.
Leaders at the local, state, and federal level are increasingly aware of
community resilience and how it might be advanced through a variety of
decisions and processes. Although many of those critical decisions and
processes to improve resilience occur at the state and local levels, the federal
government plays a central role in providing guidance for policy and program
development to assist local communities in their pursuit of greater resilience.
Development of new policies informed by an awareness of resilience, how it can
be promoted through decisions and processes, and how resilience can be
unintentionally eroded through poorly informed decisions is essential.
Recommendation 6: All federal agencies should ensure that they are
promoting and coordinating national resilience in their programs and
policies. A resilience policy review and self-assessment within agencies and
strong communication among agencies are keys to achieving this kind of
coordination.
Steps for Implementation:
This commitment will require that each federal agency conduct a
resilience self-assessment and communicate the analysis of its key resilience
programs and activities to agency staff, to key partners and stakeholders, and to
the public. Such an assessment includes
(a) The manner in which each agency's mission contributes to the resilience of
the nation;
(b) How an agency's programs provide knowledge or guidance to state and
local officials for advancing resilience;
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218 DISASTER RESILIENCE: A NATIONAL IMPERATIVE
(c) Evaluation by each federal agency of its interactions with other federal
agencies, state and local governments, and the public to evaluate the extent
to which its resilience work is made available to those who need it;
(d) Evaluation across federal agencies engaged in disaster services regarding
what is working and what is not working, and
(e) Participation by each relevant federal agency in the coordination of
resilience policy and programs as prescribed in PPD-8.
