|
By Jane Bullock and George Haddow
Several factors must be considered by local, State and
Federal government officials, the business sector and those non-profit
groups that will be critical players in the rebuilding of New Orleans,
outlying Parishes and communities in southeastern Louisiana and communities
in Mississippi and Alabama devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
First and foremost, the focus of the rebuilding effort in
New Orleans and the gulf Coast region must focus on reinventing how residents
and businesses live and function in such a high risk area. Hurricane Katrina
will not be the last hurricane to impact the area and it would be foolish
and ultimately wasteful to rebuild to 20th century standards. There must
be a commitment by everyone involved in the rebuilding effort - government,
the private sector, the general public - to set new standards that will
render communities more resilient and that will lessen the impacts of
future hurricanes.
The first step in developing and implementing new disaster
resilient standards is designing and implementing a program for full community
participation in the recovery effort. All residents and community stakeholders
must be directly involved in the planning and design processes that will
determine how best to rebuild, and in some cases relocate, their homes
and businesses.
Multi-jurisdictional consensus building processes have been
used successfully in the aftermath of the 1997 floods in the upper Midwest
that resulted in the evacuation of Grand Forks, North Dakota and to address
the flooding hazard in Napa County, California. In each instance, community,
business and non-profit leaders together with ordinary citizens worked
together to design long-term plans to mitigate the flood risks to the
communities and their way of life. The process can be painful and the
competing interests and needs may appear daunting at first but the final
results have served to unite the residents and businesses in a community-wide
effort to become disaster resilient.
Part of this consensus process involves educating the entire
community, including community leaders, concerning the new and old methods
for mitigating hurricane and flooding hazards. This process must include
full consideration of both structural mitigation actions and non-structural
actions. There are of number of structural actions to be considered including
strengthening the existing levees to resist a category 4 or 5 hurricane,
building storm water diversion canals, enhancing and/or expanding the
existing pumping system and dune reconstruction.
But these structural actions alone will not solve the problem.
Non-structural actions such as restoring the wetlands below New Orleans,
conserving existing wetlands throughout the Gulf Coast region, upgrading
and strictly enforcing building codes especially in the area of structural
elevation standards must also be considered and incorporated into the
recovery plan.
The community consensus building process should result in
an understanding and commitment by all members of each community to a
plan of action to rebuild to disaster resilient standards. This process
must be ongoing and efforts to continue to educate the public and incorporate
new standards and practices in the future must be maintained.
It will not be cheap. Right now the damage estimates run
in the tens of billions of dollars and rebuilding the infrastructure and
the homes and businesses in New Orleans and the region will likely top
$100 billion.
The Federal government will play a major role in funding
the recovery. It is critical that an individual be appointed to lead the
Federal government recovery effort who is an actively engaged partner
in the recovery with the authority to make multi-billion dollar investments,
has the full confidence and support of the President and who is accountable.
This person must be visible and engaged and readily identified with this
effort. We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes that occurred in the initial
Federal response to Katrina where it was difficult, if not impossible,
to identify who was in charge of the Federal response.
It is critical that the business community step forward
and fully participate in the recovery. The business community has a huge
stake in the rebuilding of the community infrastructure and the homes
of their employees to disaster resilient standards. The active involvement
of the business community in the consensus building process will ensure
that their needs are acknowledged, understood and addressed in the recovery.
The leaders of the recovery in many of the communities impacted by Katrina
are likely to come from the ranks of the business community and their
business continuity planners.
Finally, there is no arguing with the fact that Katrina
has had impacts far beyond New Orleans and the Gulf Coast witness the
price and availability of gasoline in its aftermath. Rebuilding the region
to disaster resilient standards will require that we as nation, and in
truth the nations of the world, make a full commitment to addressing the
impacts of global warming. Katrina is the poster child for the ever increasing
frequency and severity of natural disasters that can be directly attributed
to global climate change.
Would it not be appropriate if Katrina's legacy to the world
is that it prompted global action to reduce the causes of global warming
and thereby reduce the likelihood that another Katrina strikes anywhere
in the world in the future.
About the Authors
George D. Haddow currently serves as an Adjunct Professor
at the Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management at The George
Washington University, Washington, DC. He is also a Principal in Bullock
& Haddow LLC, a Washington-based disaster management and homeland security
consulting firm. Bullock & Haddow's client list includes the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA), the World Bank, the Corporation for National
and Community Service, DRI International and several rural counties in
North Carolina. From 1993-2001, Mr. Haddow served in the Office of the
Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as the White
House Liaison and the deputy Chief of Staff. In these positions, Mr. Haddow
was involved in the day-to-day management of FEMA, responsible for the
Director's communications; policy formulation in the areas of disaster
response, public/private partnerships, public information, environmental
protection and disaster mitigation including the design and implementation
of FEMA's national disaster mitigation initiative entitled Project Impact:
Building Disaster Resistant Communities. Mr. Haddow managed FEMA's disaster
management and mitigation projects in Argentina, Honduras, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Ecuador and the Bahamas.
The author may be reached at ghaddow@gwu.edu
Jane A. Bullock currently
serves as an Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Crisis, Disaster,
and Risk Management at The George Washington University, Washington, DC.
Ms. Bullock has worked in emergency management for over 20 years, culminating
in serving as Chief of Staff to James Lee Witt the Director of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In this position Ms. Bullock served
as principal advisor to the Director, reorganized and streamlined the
Agency operations, managed the day-to-day operations of the Agency; directed,
monitored, and evaluated Agency strategic and communication processes;
and oversaw administration of the Agency's resources, including the disaster
relief fund, supervising the response and recovery to over 300 disasters.
She represented the Administration with Congress, State and municipal
governments, foreign officials, constituent groups and the media. She
was Chief architect of FEMA's Project Impact: Building Disaster Resistant
Communities, a nationwide effort by communities and businesses to implement
prevention and risk reduction programs. She was principal on a project
to create National Disaster Response and Mitigation system for Argentina
and in six Central American and Caribbean countries. In response to the
emerging threat of terrorism, she served as part of the Clinton Administration's
Interagency Committee on National Security and Critical Infrastructure
Protection. Since leaving FEMA, she is a partner in a disaster management/homeland
security consulting firm with clients in the United States and worldwide.
She is the coauthor of a series of books on planning and building communities
in hazardous areas.
|
