By Jon Glasco.
Considering the frequency of disasters and the scale of human suffering and economic loss, the urgency of effective disaster recovery becomes apparent. The world witnessed, on average, a disaster a day in 2023, causing more than 86,000 fatalities and $203 billion in damages while disrupting the lives of 93 million people, according to the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT).
In the aftermath of catastrophic events, local governments respond to the complex task of delivering humanitarian assistance to survivors and planning the restoration of communities to ensure enhanced resilience.
More than a decade ago, the authors of a handbook on disaster management said sustainable disaster recovery is the least understood aspect of emergency management. Perhaps this is still accurate. Judging from the recent past, many governments and communities are not well prepared to cope with long-term disaster recovery.
In this article, we explore multiple issues in the process of disaster recovery and the challenge of accomplishing equitable recoveries.
Disasters versus hazards
The news media traditionally refers to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, typhoons, tornadoes, tsunamis, droughts, volcanic eruptions and extreme heat events as natural disasters. However, disaster experts argue that disasters are not natural. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc., are natural hazards—which may cause disasters, depending on how they affect people, communities and the environment. Housing conditions, quality of the built environment, poverty levels, community resilience and disaster preparedness are among the factors that determine whether a hazard causes a disaster.
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) defines a disaster as:
A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic and environmental losses and impacts.
Known for its strengths in responding to catastrophic events, the CDP supports and facilitates philanthropic actions that span the life cycle of disaster recovery—from short-term response to long-term recovery. On behalf of corporations, foundations and individual donors, the CDP manages domestic and international funds, awards grants and delivers advisory services for disaster recovery projects.
The long-term impact of disasters
In the days and weeks following a disaster, local governments attempt to stabilize a still-threatening situation by providing medical care, food and water, safety, temporary housing, and other support for families and individuals in crisis. Delivering short-term assistance is the initial phase on the arc of recovery.
In the next phase, government agencies begin the long-term process of restoring infrastructure and services, rebuilding neighborhoods, supporting economic recovery, replenishing the housing stock, and returning to a sense of normalcy while making communities more resilient.
The CDP says damage and loss from disasters “may be immediate, but the impact will last for a long time and usually requires years of recovery.”
An odyssey of disaster recovery
In 2021, catastrophic floods caused by extreme rainfall in Germany’s Ahr Valley killed more than 220 people in Europe, “leaving a trail of destruction in Germany and Belgium, and damage in the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland.”
In Germany alone, an estimated 185 people died. In the Ahr Valley, flood waters exceeding 10 meters devastated the region’s wine and tourism sectors. A year after the flood, local media reported the initial recovery steps for victims were not encouraging when they applied for reconstruction aid. “For many it was an odyssey that never seemed to end: standing in queues, waiting in queues, not being able to get through on the internet.”
More than two years later, what is the status of the recovery process? Deutsche Welle (DW) reported on uncoordinated recovery planning in the region and incomplete efforts to repair and rebuild roads, restore railway lines and services, and reopen hotels and convention facilities.
Rebuilding is in progress in the badly damaged town of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, and Mayor Guido Orthen “would like to do more but says there is a lack of money and political will to re-engineer the [Ahr] Valley” with more flood protection. Researchers evaluating Germany’s response to the floods concluded that recovery funding schemes need to shift priorities from compensation for loss and damage to innovation in resilience and attention to reducing vulnerabilities.
“Research on humanitarian supply chains tends to focus on immediate responses rather than long-term recovery. Yet communities frequently struggle to replace the infrastructure lost during a severe storm, mainly because they are ill-prepared,” said Rafael Diaz, a professor at the Zaragoza Logistics Center in Spain.
Similar problems emerged after Hurricane Sandy devastated the New York and New Jersey region. “Cities were not prepared, and rezoning restrictions and unwieldy regulations caused bottlenecks that delayed the construction of new housing for years after the hurricane,” said Diaz.
The tragedy of post-disaster life
Cities in Florida are extremely vulnerable to dangerous storms and complicated recoveries. In 2022, Hurricane Ian slammed into South Florida with sustained winds of 155 mph and a storm surge that obliterated 900 structures. The storm caused an estimated $115 billion in damage—the nation’s third worst hurricane on record—and prompted the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into action. FEMA is responsible for guiding devastated communities through long-term recovery.
The federal government allocated $8.7 billion (as of September 2023) to support recovery efforts for Hurricane Ian victims. However, this falls short of what’s needed for victims to restore some sense of normalcy and regain control of their lives.
Many survivors without adequate financial reserves believe life after Ian is “more tragic than the hurricane itself.” The Washington Post reported this is what disaster experts call “the storm after the storm: a seemingly never-ending marathon that is navigating America’s slow, complex and dysfunctional disaster response.” Estimates of the time to recover in South Florida range from five years up to a decade.
There is no established process for long-term recovery [in Florida] because each recovery is unique, according to FEMA, and depends on “the severity of the impact, how the community is organized, and if the community is ready to do the recovery,” said Leda Khoury, disaster recovery coordinator at FEMA, quoted in the Fort Myers News-Press.
Vulnerable communities suffer
Vulnerable communities are among the least resilient to extreme weather events, and people in these communities typically suffer more than their share of loss from the impact of disasters.
The United Nations, through its climate and environmental priorities, addresses the post-disaster necessity to protect marginalized people, ensure equitable recovery outcomes, and build resilience in vulnerable communities. Although the UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) do not have a goal dedicated to post-disaster recovery, SDG 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities includes targets for addressing post-disaster challenges, for example SDG Target 11.5:
By 2030, significantly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected and substantially decrease the direct economic losses relative to global gross domestic product caused by disasters, including water-related disasters, with a focus on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations.
Following major disasters, the UN Development Program (UNDP) assists communities as they make the transition from disaster response to long-term recovery. UNDP facilitates a link between humanitarian activities, recovery planning and sustainable development—while looking toward a vision of building back better, reducing vulnerability and transforming risk into resilience.
The CDP says a successful recovery is about addressing the sources of inequitable outcomes and helping people rebound from their losses. Regrettably, a recovery to restore normalcy does not always deliver an equitable recovery—especially when unbalanced recovery efforts lead to disruption of local housing markets. In 2023, heavy rain in the U.S. caused extreme flooding in Vermont, destroying homes and businesses, roads and bridges, and damaging critical infrastructure. Unfortunately, much of Vermont’s affordable rental housing was built on environmentally undesirable land. The outcome was predictable. When the community flooded, it suffered a calamitous impact on low-income rental units, making the housing market more inequitable for disadvantaged citizens.
“Disaster mitigation resources typically flow to well-resourced jurisdictions rather than those with the largest share of vulnerable households.” This situation increases the problem of unbalanced recoveries, according to a report from Brookings Metro.
The UNDP says recovery strategies that foster equitable and resilient outcomes “are in short supply and high demand.” and therefore in our next article we show how cities can plan for disaster recovery strategies.
Foto by Chris Gallagher via Unsplash
