The linked story is about Tent Camps in Haiti, but the real lesson for us is about long term recovery planning.
In forwarding the above article Frannie Edwards wrote:
We emergency managers along with most others keep getting caught just preparing and responding. Mitigation pays the biggest benefits in the long term by preventing or minimizing damages. Those things we can't prevent or mitigate we will have to recover from. Just look at New Orleans Disaster Recovery Stalled Under Nagin and the mess that remains there. While some would argue it is driven by the socio-economic status of the region and an inept local government I'm not so sure that there would not be other areas of the United States that would struggle to get back on their feet.
For those areas of the country with a large number of disaster events we can have a false sense of security in our ability to deal with disasters. It is the catastrophic disaster that needs to be planned for, not in the response, but in the recovery. I know we'll respond just fine as a nation, it is the long term recovery that concerns me.
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In forwarding the above article Frannie Edwards wrote:
Here is an article about Haiti from the LA Times. It provides an excellent papadigm for the challenges of long term recovery that California will face after a major earthquake. Even after Northridge, which was a relatively small event with a limited impact area, getting people back into decent (and available!) housing was a problem. When no housing is immediately available the challenges will be greater. This highlights the need for serious long term recovery planning that envisions how we go from response and temporary accomodations to longer term interim shelter and restarting the economy.
We emergency managers along with most others keep getting caught just preparing and responding. Mitigation pays the biggest benefits in the long term by preventing or minimizing damages. Those things we can't prevent or mitigate we will have to recover from. Just look at New Orleans Disaster Recovery Stalled Under Nagin and the mess that remains there. While some would argue it is driven by the socio-economic status of the region and an inept local government I'm not so sure that there would not be other areas of the United States that would struggle to get back on their feet.
For those areas of the country with a large number of disaster events we can have a false sense of security in our ability to deal with disasters. It is the catastrophic disaster that needs to be planned for, not in the response, but in the recovery. I know we'll respond just fine as a nation, it is the long term recovery that concerns me.
