UC Riverside UC Riverside Previously Published Works Title Managing Urban Disaster Response Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3428z8fd ISBN 978-0-9570710-0-1 Author Blakely, Edward Publication Date 2015-04-01 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Managing Urban Disaster: A Reissued Text & Reader with Cases Re-issued in 2019 by Principal Editor Professor Edward J Blakely Managing urban disaster recovery Managing Urban Disaster Recovery: Policy, Planning, Concepts and Cases Editors: Edward j. Blakely Eugénie l. birch Roland V. Anglin Haruo Hayashi With Laura Crommelin Associate editors Yasushi Aoyama Peter Fisher Jed horne Joe Leitmann Norio Maki Michael Neuman Kazayuki Sasaki Richard Voith Crisis Response Publications Preface, Contents, Introduction 1 Managing urban disaster recovery A Crisis Response Publications Book Published by Crisis Response Publications 2011 Copyright © Edward J. Blakely 2011 ISBN: 978-0-9570710-0-1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from Crisis Response Publications. Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Crisis Response Publications A division of FireNet International Ltd Registered Office: 12 Shepherds Way, Crowthorne, Berkshire RG45 6AJ, UK www.crisis-response.com [email protected] typeset & design by E Hough Cover image courtesy of New Zealand Fire Service This book is dedicated to disaster recovery workers around the world 2 Preface, Contents, Introduction Managing urban disaster recovery Contents Background 4 Introduction 6 Section 1: Managing Recovery 16 Chapter 1: Recovery Strategy 17 Chapter 1: Cases and resources 26 Chapter 2: Recovery Plans and Planning 31 Chapter 2: Cases and resources 43 Chapter 3: Managing Partnerships to Support Recovery 53 Chapter 3: Cases and resources 66 Chapter 4: Disaster Recovery Managers 77 Section 2: Social, Cultural and Economic Recovery 88 Chapter 5: Restoring Community Identity and Social Capital 89 Chapter 5: Cases and resources 99 Chapter 6: Informing Recovery 109 Chapter 6: Cases and resources 120 Chapter 7: The Economics of Recovery 126 Chapter 7: Cases and resources 136 Section 3: Physical Recovery 145 Chapter 8: Recovery of Housing 146 Chapter 8: Cases and resources 158 Chapter 9: Restoring Infrastructure 179 Chapter 9: Cases and resources 189 Section 4: Conclusion 198 What We Know and What We Still Need To Learn Contributing editors 204 Cited references 214 Preface, Contents, Introduction 3 Managing urban disaster recovery Background to this book The idea for this book came to me as I reflected on my journey through a number of disaster recoveries, particularly my experience as the head of the New Orleans recovery after Hurricane Katrina. As I worked in New Orleans, I became aware that there was no book that I felt entirely comfortable using to assist me in the recovery. That is not to say there were not many books. But, for the most part, the books I found only recounted the background to various recoveries, without offering much advice on how one might proceed as the recovery moved ahead. I was fortunate in New Orleans to have many mentors and peers who coached me through periods of uncertainty, but I was conscious that other future recovery managers may not be so lucky. As a result, I made a pledge to myself that I would try to develop a compendium of some kind to fill this gap. So, when I was packing up to leave New Orleans, I called several of the people who helped me through this experience, and floated the idea of creating a book or guide specifically designed for recovery managers. They all agreed this was something that was needed and, much to my delight, many also agreed to be involved as co-editors. This book would not have happened without their hard work and enthusiasm. The next step in the journey was for us to meet as a group and decide what we could or should do to fill the void. I began by visiting Eugénie Birch at the University of Pennsylvania, who helped shape my rough outline into something more coherent, as well as providing a small start-up fund. Soon after, another colleague, Roland Anglin at Rutgers University, came on board to provide the finances and venue to host the first meeting of co-editors. We met in New Jersey in late 2009 to flesh out the scope of the book and the key issues to be covered, as well as to make an educational visit to the 9-11 site and museum in Manhattan. During this meeting we decided that the group’s personal experiences with managing disaster recovery should be the main focus of the book, thus prompting the decision to base it predominantly on disasters around the Pacific Rim (expanded slightly to include the Gulf of Mexico). We also decided to reach out to other scholars and practitioners we knew, to provide complementary case studies and materials that would enhance the quality and scope of the work. We were also fortunate at this stage to secure the support of the Japan Society and the Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership, which allowed the group to undertake two further meetings – one in Japan and one in Australia. At each of these subsequent meetings, we spent time both reviewing our work and seeing local recovery projects in operation. In Japan we undertook a field trip to Kobe and spent considerable time reviewing the city’s earthquake preparation efforts – an exercise which has given us even more appreciation of how extreme and horrific this year’s tragedy in Sendai was, given the country’s impressive preparation and mitigation strategies. In Australia we met in Sydney and took a field trip to Melbourne, this time 4 Preface, Contents, Introduction Managing urban disaster recovery generously assisted by the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, RMIT University, and the Victorian Bushfire Recovery and Reconstruction Authority (as it then was). In Melbourne we examined the recovery process following 2009’s Black Saturday bushfire tragedy, as well as discussing Australia’s flood, sea rise and fire risks with leading experts. In its final form, the book is a combination of compendium, guide and primer on disaster recovery. It is designed as a starting point for identifying some of the key issues most recovery managers will encounter. Of course, we do not – and cannot – hope to cover all the complexities of recovery that are likely to be relevant to any given place, or any particular kind of disaster. Other books have done or will do that, on a case-by-case basis. But someone has to piece all of these case-based lessons together into a broader framework, and our goal was to begin this process. We expect, and hope, that many more books will soon follow in its footsteps. We are grateful to our publication partners Crisis Response Journal/IAFPA Bulletin, which are publishing this book. This is the right publisher for our work because its primary audience are the practitioners we want to reach. The Crisis Response Journal will also provide strong website support, so that new issues can be posted as they arise. This will ensure the book remains as current as possible for a work of this kind. We hope the website will also become a forum for discussion among practitioners, who are part of what we see as an emerging specialized professional field in public administration. We hope this work will be one small contribution to the establishment of this important new field of disaster recovery research and practice. Edward J. Blakely Lead Editor Preface, Contents, Introduction 5 Managing urban disaster recovery Introduction Edward J. Blakely, Eugénie L. Birch, and Roland V. Anglin Disasters happen Disasters happen. Defined as: “Situations or events which overwhelm local capacity, necessitating requests to a national or international level for external assistance; unforeseen and often sudden events that cause great damage, destruction and human suffering,” disasters may be natural, man-made or some combination (such as lightning-caused brushfires that engulf poorly-located urban neighborhoods) (Vos et al. 2010, 5).1 Over the past 15 years, the number of disasters and their victims has varied significantly, from 227 in 1996 with over 200 million victims, to 422 in 2002 (660 million victims) and 434 in 2005 (more than 100 million victims) (Vos et al. 2010, 2). In 2005, disasters caused an estimated US$159 billion in damages. That year started with the clean-up from the December 26, 2004, Asian tsunami that killed about 200,000 people and continued with catastrophe after catastrophe: in March an 8.7 (Richter scale) earthquake hit the island of Nias, Indonesia, killing 2,000; in July, monsoon rains led to historically high floods in Mumbai, killing 1,000; in August, Hurricane Katrina battered the US Gulf Coast, leaving 1,836 fatalities in its wake; and October brought an earthquake (7.6 Richter scale, about the same as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) to the Kashmir region, with 73,000 fatalities in Pakistan and 1,300 in India. Yet natural disasters are not the only problem; In 2010, for example, 11,500 acts of terrorism claimed 13,200 lives (Ferran 2011). As surely as these disasters have occurred in the past, they will continue to occur in the future. Indeed, they are likely to be worse, as global warming leading to climate change will enhance their frequency, duration and severity. It will lead to a rise in coastal and fluvial water levels, hotter, dryer summers and warmer, wetter winters, all of which will contribute to drought, overheating, flooding and more turbulent climatological events (Mayor of London 2010, x).