THE GREATEST INFLUENCER IN NATURAL DISASTERS RECOVERY
FORWARD
The human species, in one regard, can be viewed as a 2-sided coin when it comes to decision-making. On the tails side, are those things we tend to ignore, as they do not directly impact our lives. If it happens over there, then we need not concern ourselves. Even so, our long-acquired survival skills have conditioned us to keep a watchful eye on what does happen over there… just in case. On the heads side, our cranial lobe has enabled us to imagine, build, and make use of things that enhance our lives. Fire for warmth, structures for shelter, clean water for sustainability, tools for harvesting crops, weapons for hunting and safety, and toilets for convenience are but a few expressions of our basic needs. This side of the coin is filled with choices, decisions, and outcomes, some that favorably enhance our lives, and some that expose the weaknesses in our imperfection.
So, given our potential or lack thereof, we are continuously challenged in our pursuit of sustainability. From a purely technical perspective, we’re able to shape tangible aspects that sustain life, such as the development of adequate food sources or environmental controls on some level. But try as we may, our ability to effectively cope with greater global and universal risks is limited, reactionary, and often jaded by short-term ego-driven ‘benefits’ of illusion. This paper explores one aspect of our ability, or lack thereof, to mitigate the impacts of perhaps the second greatest threat to our existence - natural disasters. At this time, it is our opinion that this threat is exceeded only by the impacts and outcomes that precipitate from climate change. But just maybe, our lessons from natural disaster mitigation can contribute to the upcoming battle with climate change?
Consider the following natural disaster events:
> October 1780, The Great Hurricane of the Antilles - 22,000 people killed.
> July – November 1931, China flooding - 400,000 to 4,000,000 people killed.
> 12 January 2010, Haiti earthquake - 300,000 people killed (the 2nd worst earthquake-related death toll in recorded human history) and 1.5 million people displaced.
> 22 February 2011, New Zealand earthquake - 186 people killed.
First, a minor clarification on terminology - natural hazards are not natural disasters. Natural hazards are simply events, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, avalanches, drought, fires, and volcanoes. These hazards only have the potential to wreak havoc on vulnerable populations and communities. However, a natural disaster is the adverse outcome from a natural hazard that impacts a vulnerable population so dramatically that the very existence and sustainability of that population are substantially at risk.
Natural disasters can be characterized as follows – first, they occur naturally within our living environment, and second, they threaten and destroy the built side of the human coin. When a hazard event evolves into a disaster, the affected population is often in desperate need of assistance, and as quickly as possible. The process that follows natural disasters is a response/recovery/rebuild process and it has no predictable time schedule. It is within this very process that choices and decisions are made, some good and some bad, that impact how well the victims and their communities will recover or be prepared for future events.
The post-disaster environment is extremely fluid, dynamic, complex, and unpredictable. Players within this arena can be stretched to emotional, physical, and intellectual limits. NGO’s, governments, businesses, and other responders utilize a diverse set of tools and rely on diverse responder skillsets to keep the recovery process moving forward. This paper examines perhaps the most influential tool in the mitigation and recovery arsenal – capacity. We explore factors that influence capacity, factors that enhance capacity, and factors that destroy capacity.
There are three fundamental supporting pillars of capacity. This paper presents several fundamental elements of each of those pillars. Having a functional, dynamic capacity tool is absolutely essential in natural disaster mitigation and recovery. The eventual success or failure of preparedness efforts, future mitigative efforts, and the post-disaster recovery process are directly correlated to the integrity of the capacity and how well it is implemented. There are literally hundreds of positive and negative factors that influence capacity. At the end of the day, the intended outcome of safeguarding vulnerable populations will be reliant on minimizing the negative and maximizing the positive within a growth-based culture. First-hand experiences with some of these factors are debated.
Finally, the notion of adequate capacity will be examined as communities evolve from resilience to adaptability as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced. Will the fundamental elements of capacity positively contribute to dealing with water and food shortages, mass migration, rising seawater, economic impacts, jobs, housing, and the psychological impacts of climate change? Or, will climate change simply overwhelm humanity’s capacity to adapt to situations that the ego cannot control?
A note to the reader – the views and opinions expressed herein are from our first-hand experiences in natural disaster regions, pre- and post-event. The business of natural disaster planning, preparedness, risk reduction, mitigation, response, recovery, resilience, and sustainability are extremely broad and complex. This paper does not purport to cover all aspects of natural disaster mitigation and recovery. Rather, we aim only to share, educate, create awareness, and promote positive thinking that yields best results.
PART I - INTRODUCTION
As a responder in half-a-dozen natural and man-made disaster regions, I’ve been amazed at the level of devastation that the survivors are able to endure and overcome. Almost as staggering, are the heroic, relentless efforts needed to restore some sense of normalcy for the survivors and to impacted communities. Each disaster is unique, with its own languages, culture, devastation, challenges, politics, resources, players, and recovery goals. Some disasters devastate entire business communities, requiring the development of massive long-term economic recovery strategies, as was the case in Christchurch, New Zealand post-2010-2011 earthquakes. Other disaster zones experience incomprehensible population losses, essentially shocking their communities into numbness, as happened in Haiti in 2010 with the loss of 300,000 souls. In rare situations, disasters wipe clean entire cultures, forcing a total regeneration of cultural identity by the survivors, as occurred on Bikini, Enewetok, and Rongelap Atolls in the aftermath of the US nuclear testing programs in the 1950’s.
Whether man-made or natural in source, disasters challenge the survivability and best recovery intentions of responders and victims. In all cases, change is inevitable and necessary, and usually on a level outside the comfort zone of the victims. The invasion of aid can be overwhelming, that when coupled with limited local resources and extraordinary needs, can create a disaster within the disaster. New faces will be eagerly greeted with hopeful caution by survivors shaken and uncertain as to what the next day holds, much less the unfamiliar recovery process. Thankfully, among the myriad of new faces, there will be cowboys attending yet another rodeo. They have seen this before and with their hearts of gold, wits of light, relentless commitment, and ingenious nature of a hungry octopus, they will massage the calamity into a new normal.
Successful disaster response and recovery requires the diligent implementation of three essentials – resources, resources, and resources. Adequate financial resources are a necessary evil, often less abundant than needed, but it will catalyze the continuous flow of the much-needed aid services. The resource of materials and labor will provide the guts of the evolution. The resource of partnership will be the glue that binds the efforts together to push the ball up the hill, to maintain focus on the necessary outputs to achieve critical outcomes. In a perfect world, these resources blend together to give hope and help the victims recover. However, in the world of reality, humanity is not perfect, and it can be challenging to get the lumps out of the pancake batter.
But why are there pitfalls? If there is full cooperation between partners, adequate financial resources, and more than enough labor/material resources, then what happens to result in less-than-expected/desired outcomes? Disaster preparedness, mitigation, and response is a multi-layered system that relies on more than the best possible performances from all players to produce the best results. There are numerous dynamics within the fluid disaster response environment that shape the process successes and failures. But none is perhaps more influential than the concept of capacity. We will explore the three key pillars that support the broad capacity platform, that when adequate can over-serve beyond expectations, but when flawed can result in the dreadful disaster-within-a-disaster. We will also present some of the essentials that characterize successful recovery efforts, along with flaws that undermine recovery intentions.
PART II – PILLARS
So, what is capacity? Webster’s dictionary defines capacity as an individual's mental or physical ability, and the McMillan Dictionary defines capacity as… the ability to do something. But who or what provides the ability, or the less desirable inability, to influence outcomes in natural disaster mitigation and recovery? Is capacity inherent, or is it learned, or maybe it is situationally relative? Is capacity needed or even wanted, or can it be built, as is often an objective in disaster response situations? Is there a general presumption or paradigm that responders have the capacity to fix everything? Or maybe, just maybe, capacity is nothing more than another expression of the human soul’s need to survive with adequate shelter, food, water, air, and toilets.
As previously noted, it has been estimated that 300,000 people perished in the 2010 Haiti earthquake, while 186 people were killed in the 2011 Christchurch event. The disparity of losses between the two events could lead one to believe that the Haiti event was more devastating than Christchurch. Based only on the number of deaths, it was. However, the human mind has difficulty quantifying such large numbers and the personal sensitivity can be diminished with “psychic numbing” as one researcher has noted. Whereas in Christchurch, the human losses and infrastructure devastation were very personal to the affected communities and were perceived as having a greater impact. Political, economic, and cultural characteristics of events are unique and demand that the strategic recovery efforts be robust, fluid, elastic, and tailored to meet the needs of each disaster situation. But there are commonalities, such as business disruption, infrastructure losses, migration, homelessness, unpredictability, despair, and physical changes that dominate post-disaster environments.
To begin, we advise there are two fundamental underlying premises relevant to the role of capacity in disaster response. First, capacity does not exist without human intervention. All the sand on the beaches, all the trees in the forests, and all the iron ore in the ground are not useful and do not provide capacity on their own accord without some form of human intervention. At least one study distinguishes that the human species is unique from other animals because it can better recognize, remember, and process sequential information. This distinguishing trait precipitated the concepts of mathematics, physics, the sciences, and space exploration. And from these concepts, we were able to develop ‘useful’ tools to modify our living environment. Second, throughout time, the human being has continuously endeavored to enhance its living space, with some exceptions. Movements from caves to skyscrapers, foot travel to Apollo rockets, and hunter-gatherers to artificial intelligence, man has been continuously evolving his environment to suit his needs and desires. In the world of natural disaster mitigation and recovery, these two premises have culminated with the basic notions of resilience and sustainability, sans luxury.
In the simplest of terms, capacity is supported by three pillars – resources, welcoming, and implementation. Weakness within any of these supports can result in the structural failure of a pillar, and lead to the potential collapse of the entire capacity notion. Just as concrete is a matrix of sand, gravel, water, and cement, each of these pillars contains influential elements that cohesively bond together to provide integrity and strength to the concrete element. A number of the elements associated with each pillar are provided in Table 1. We explore some of the influential characteristics of each pillar, and the glue that bonds them together, or not.
The tabletop of capacity is broad, distributed among individuals, organizations, and governmental agencies. Each partner brings unique expertise and responsibility to the efforts, none more important than the other, and all comprise a necessary element in the recovery matrix. Obviously, the recovery process is complex and multi-dimensional, and it is beyond the capacity of this paper to reveal all the secrets of this universe. Rather, we limit our discussions to the three most influential.
Resources. Imagine for a second, that you want to build a house, and your contractor shows up on-site every day with his subcontractors, but they have no drawings, no tools, no shovels, no hammers, no nails, no windows, no doors, and the owner has no financial resources to pay for anything. Not much would get accomplished. Such is the case in disaster recovery, multiplied by a factor of a thousand and at a level of complexity and stress that most people can’t begin to comprehend. The risks and consequences associated with resource deficiencies are far-reaching and have detrimental impacts to victims and communities already struggling with survival.
A broad range of resources is needed in disaster recovery to continually move the process forward. Clearly, there are different needs at different stages, with the life-saving resources needed as soon as possible; followed by community stabilization with basic needs of water, food, shelter, and toilets; and slowly evolved into the long-term rebuild and re-establishment of community.
Welcoming. Regardless of event type or location, each natural disaster usually needs external assistance for the response and recovery processes. The needs are so diverse, overwhelming, intense, unpredictable, and usually beyond what the local communities are capable of routinely providing.
Persons experienced in working in natural disaster environments provide a wealth of knowledge, skills, and resources to aid in addressing the daunting list of recovery tasks. For those persons directly impacted, there will be feelings of loss, hopelessness, insecurity, anger, and countless others. Marry these emotions with potentially thousands of new faces, lack of resources, devastation, unrecognizable neighborhoods, loss of friends and family, and one has the ingredients for debilitating chaos. Confusion, misunderstandings, political anxiety, inefficiency, mistrust, and many other collateral impacts will need to be addressed and resolved in order for the recovery process to be effective.
Far too often, the rapid, the inclusion of initial responders in the disaster zone can overshadow a critical need to the recovery process – welcoming by the impacted communities and their leaders to the aid and responders. This is absolutely essential as it sets the tone of the recovery, establishes operational guidelines, encourages cooperation, provides for open dialogue, and creates a sense of unity and purpose to achieve the near-term and long-term goals and objectives. The notion of welcoming seems so obvious, can be presumptuous, but must not be taken for granted. The effectiveness of the recovery and long-term benefits to the victims depend on the partnering of all persons involved.
Implementation. Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon. But until he did so, there were no guarantees. Billions of dollars, decades of education, and immeasurable training had prepared NASA for that moment, but all could be lost if not for near-perfect execution. Such is also the case in disaster recovery, sans some degree of technical precision. The many assets of human/material/financial resources, leadership, and planning demand diligence, experience, creativity, discipline, and commitment to achieve the desired outcomes. But recovery is a process and human imperfections become evident with time. This is perhaps the most impactful phase of disaster recovery as it moves the process from concept to action, reveals weaknesses in the previous planning aspects, and delivers the much-needed aid to the survivors.
PART III – SYNERGY
The Greek philosopher Aristotle has been credited with saying, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” This notion evolved into a writing by John Heywood in 1546… “But of these two thynges he wolde determyne none Without aide. For two hedds are better than one,” and is recognized today as… Two heads are better than one. Both phrases illustrate that although an individual may be brilliant of his/her own accord, two or more individuals or businesses can produce more than the sum of their individual efforts.
In today’s world, the terms teamwork and synergy describe concepts used in business to promote and deliver improved results. In the arena of disaster recovery, collaboration is a term often used by organizations to label the unified efforts of multiple responders that are necessary to produce the best results. Regardless of the descriptor, the best individual intentions produce little without the human needs that catalyze synergy. These needs, facilitated through partnerships, ensure the pillars can withstand the many challenges inherent in the disaster recovery process.
Be it atomic, mechanical, emotional, gravitational, or physical, there are forces in the universe that bond together or repel apart. In the world of disaster recovery, the bond for adherence to objectives is a fragile blend of like-mindedness, transparency, objectivity, integrity, and commitment. With proper proportions and curing, these ingredients constitute the glue of relationships that binds the pillar elements together. But just as weaknesses in the pillar elements can threaten the pillar integrity, so too can relationship imperfections weaken its bonding and purpose integrity. In its final state, the glue must be tough to withstand the many stresses encountered over time, and equally flexible to accommodate slight variations, adjustments, and movements.
Theoretically, if all elements and the glue of the three pillars are functioning as intended, then there should be plenty of support for the capacity tabletop. Unfortunately, disaster recovery cannot escape the imperfections of our humanity. Perhaps this is the way that survival skills pass between generations, always in pursuit of perfection, while shackled with built-in flaws that challenge our ability to overcome. In any case, humanity is relegated to accepting that its flaws will at some point, play a role in the recovery processes regardless of best intentions. Thus, acceptance of what is, not ignoring or minimizing, is a vital first step in developing a path forward.
International and national non-governmental organizations (iNGO’s and NGO’s) develop these values further through the notion of clusters, intended to facilitate coordination, collaboration, and awareness of activities on the ground. These working groups provide opportunities to share ideas, share activities, and communicate with others outside one’s own organization about what is happening throughout the disaster region. With this knowledge gain, responders can adjust or re-focus or perhaps enhance their efforts to maximize their effectiveness. At least that’s the intent, in theory.
But there is a nemesis of the synergy star – business. The billions of dollars that flow into disaster recovery efforts don’t fall from the sky. Rather, they represent donations from individuals, businesses, and governments, to iNGO’s, NGO’s, and a multitude of private organizations. At that point, the recipient organizations are basically free to allocate, spend, or save those funds at their discretion in ways that will hopefully portray positive results to shareholders and donors. Unfortunately, it is a sad reality in the world of disaster response that business self-interests (profit, image, reputation, etc.) often outweigh those of the greater collective objectives, thereby reducing the synergy potential.
Regardless of the negative, responders arrive at post-disaster events with a plethora of capacity impatiently waiting to be exploited – education, tireless physical & intellectual energy, heart, technical skills, IT skills, selfless ambition, and experiences from past rodeos. The challenge is to utilize the over-abundant capacity most efficiently, without waste and without losing sight of the ultimate objectives. But life is a balance.
PART IV – DOING
This phase of disaster response is exciting! Miracles happen in this phase. Everything is in motion – responders arrive in droves; human and material resources arrive by any means available; victims seek out their basic daily needs; frantic searches for survivors dominate daily news with the occasional positive outcome; roadblocks of collapsed structures, decapitated vegetation, and destroyed infrastructure dominate the landscape; and responding agencies formulate plans to guide the upcoming processes. Outsiders engage insiders, with best intentions and hopeful apprehension. The metamorphosis has begun!
In all of these response activities, there is a connecting thread that will define success, or failure, of the processes – activation of capacity through human activities. There are persons and entities with ample capacity who will serve beyond their mandate, beyond their calling for they comprehend the needs and the gifts they possess to meet those needs. Their work leads to successes and serves the benefactors, often termed as honorable in their service to those in need, from the heart and not the ego. On the other hand, there are others with apparent capacity and high-level responsibility, who will be deficient, at times inept. Their actions are driven by accolades, business profits, and accountability to their organizations and not the benefactors. Their actions result in failure, followed by excuses as they pursue empty justification of their misguided decision-making.
With regard to resources, persons from all professions and backgrounds lend their expertise to help with the overwhelming mountain of work that lies ahead. Others are compelled to help from the heart, lending and in some cases realizing, new-found talents previously dormant. Architects, engineers, construction experts, financiers, planners, educators, IT experts, logistics managers, and government officials will be needed to transform the devastated communities and lives into a new normal. Perhaps more important though is the role played by the survivors. Their local knowledge, skills, personal and professional connections, government, businesses, expectations, and wishes will shape the recovery of their new community. After all, this was, is, and will be, THEIR home.
The time, resources, sacrifice, experiences, and investment expended by the responders and survivors to develop their hidden pre-disaster skills are incalculable, yet so essential in the post-disaster climate. But a hammer alone does not build a house. The second invaluable component of capacity, welcoming, will lay the foundation for that house. Following a natural disaster event, it is presumptuous of outside aid providers to think that the impacted communities want or need help. This isn’t always the case on any number of levels. Sometimes, the impacted communities have sufficient resources to address the needs, and caution is exercised before reaching out to aid agencies. A sudden influx of human and material resources brings its own set of issues that may cause additional stress for the communities. On the opposite end of the spectrum, impacted communities may not have the resources to respond to the overwhelming needs, much less the handling of thousands of aid workers and the materials they will bring. In either case, the host community must genuinely welcome outside assistance for a duration of their choosing. This requires continuous partnering dialogues with the aid providers to maintain a positive, transparent recovery effort. Without a respectful welcoming, the invasion will be short-lived with feelings of animosity, resentment, and anger overshadowing and disrupting an otherwise necessary process.
The remaining support leg of capacity, lies in implementation, i.e. having the leadership, effective leadership, responsible leadership that can swing the hammer with the accuracy to drive the nail without smashing the fingers. Every disaster situation is unique and demands experienced leaders to adapt past methodologies to the new situation and create new strategies. Decisions made by those at the top of the food chain can be genius, and most effective when focus stays on task with clear, productive objectives. On the other hand, the human bean is conflicted, ever-struggling between heart and ego, with the ego winning out more than it should. This can spell doom for planning, mitigation, and recovery efforts. Deficient work plans, erroneous data, misguided and flawed inception reports, non-subjective or inaccurate reporting, non-professional agendas, top-down communications or politically based decision-making can virtually guarantee poor results. Program objectives will not be met, financial waste will be rampant, and the survivors suffer the consequences.
Fortunately, the human bean has developed a survival trick to address poor capacity - the will to overcome adversity. At no other time in the natural disaster preparedness, response, and mitigation process, is the true realization of capacity tested more than in the doing phase. Many times, the capacity is already in place and it’s simply a matter of getting the ball rolling. Other times, capacity may be lacking, and it is an opportunity to bolster or improve capacity through training and education, to build resilience against future events. In either case, the will to overcome may very well be a fourth supporting leg of the capacity table.
To paraphrase… the strength of a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This could not be truer than in the arena of preparedness, response, and mitigation of natural disaster events. From a delayed shipment of critical medical supplies to the misguided decisions of politically motivated program managers, weak links can be lurking anywhere. Thus, it is the mandate of ALL persons involved in those arenas to be mindful of the potential pitfalls, be focused on the task, and operate with integrity, transparency, and objectivity to be successful at DOING.
PART V – GROWTH
What once was… was! In 1940, the novel “You Can’t Go Home Again” by Thomas Wolfe was published posthumously. In short, the novel portrays how life evolves with time and things don’t remain the same. Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity predicts that time changes for two bodies traveling at different speeds relative to eachother. In both examples, the travelers experience life through distinct filters that shape new perspectives and growth from what once was. Natural disaster survivors are faced with a similar situation - how to move forward from what was, through the chaos to what will be?
During the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, hundreds of unreinforced masonry (URM) and stone structures that defined the cultural heritage of Christchurch were either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The most iconic of those structures was the centerpiece Christchurch Cathedral, built over a period of 40 years starting in 1864. The new Christ’s Church in New Zealand became the city’s namesake all but transplanted from its motherland half a world away. But its West rose window wall and bell tower were essentially destroyed by the earthquakes, and other portions were heavily damaged. Though majestic, URM buildings do not fare well in the high-risk seismic regions along the Pacific Ring of Fire, as evidenced in Canterbury.
The people of Christchurch struggled through numerous heated debates to determine if the church should be restored, demolished, or rebuilt, and at what cost. A ‘temporary’ Cardboard Cathedral was even erected near the collapsed CTV Building to serve more as a place to remember the souls lost in the earthquakes. At the time of this writing, it was understood the cathedral will be repaired/rebuilt over the next 10 years or so, with preliminary estimates well-exceeding $100 million. Many Canterburians obviously perceive great value in retaining this icon of their historic past, and on some level have selected this icon as part of their growth into the future.
Christchurch was emotionally devastated by the earthquakes. Their soul was gone, their majestic icons were reduced to rubble, friends and family were lost. But out of the darkness comes light, and a unique opportunity for growth. New modern structures rose from the rubble, neighbors discovered their neighbors, and the Canterbury communities united to build a new future. Replacement structures of steel and timber, designed to new seismic-resilient building codes, underpinned faith that Christchurch can once again be a great place to live and work. This transformation begs the question that all devastated communities face - how is it that the community can shift from despair to vitality and excitement for the future?
Intentional change is not inherent for humans. We tend to be creatures of habit and comfort. To choose change challenges one to reach outside the comfort zone, to temporarily forfeit control, a notion the ego deplores. David Gleicher studied the motivations of change and developed what is now known as the Gleicher Formula for Change. Other researchers have developed variations on the formula, but the basic form remains the same:
C = D x V x F > R where,
C = the change
D = the dissatisfaction with the current situation
V = the vision for the future
F = the first steps or plan to achieve the vision
R = the resistance to change
Simply put, the intentional change will only occur when one’s perception of the status quo is negative, and when proactive actions are realized for something better or of greater benefit to one’s self. Following a natural disaster, the dissatisfaction component is obvious – chaos is stressful and typically abnormal. The vision and first steps of change can be a bit blurry, amidst the calamity of one’s world that has flipped upside down. In many cases, the necessary change may not be voluntary, but forced, to address the priority needs. Infrastructure destruction, loss of life, business losses, disruption to one’s daily activities, and many other environmental changes virtually demand the survivors to be proactive to rebuild their lives. Even so, the ego is ever-present and can divert even the best thought-out recovery efforts, negating any positive intentions of capacity or possibility of growth.
Recall from earlier, that a natural disaster is an event that compromises the existence or sustainability of a population. With significant structural damages, infrastructure damages, business interruptions, or livelihood disruptions, one could debate the integrity or effectiveness of the community building codes, regulations, policies or even the administrators. Obviously, the capacity intended to provide resilience didn’t perform as envisioned, and adjustments must be made if resilience and growth are to occur. This can be challenging.
What the Gleicher formula is really addressing is an attitude shift. Training on improved construction practices, education on natural hazard forces, policy changes, disaster planning workshops, inception reports, and such are futile exercises unless the survivors are committed to a better future. Shifts are necessary for all persons, from the homeowners to the business owners to the administrators as the perceptions of D, V, and F vary depending on need and personal impact. Thus, the Resistance is not identical for all survivors. On one hand, strong leadership can ensure the 3 pillars of capacity remain strong throughout the recovery period in order for the attitude shift, i.e. growth, to occur. On the other hand, retaining the pre-event status quo is a simple denial of what now is, growth will be smothered, resilience will not improve, and the capacity of the community to withstand future events will be undermined.
PART VI – NECESSITY
Up to this point, we have debated the notion of capacity on the macro level, i.e. the ability of people, public and private organizations, governments, iNGOs and NGOs to participate in the arena of natural disaster mitigation and recovery. But many of the elements presented in Table 1 also apply on the micro-level, i.e. as characteristics of individuals and single business units. Their capacity is equally of value and as influential, if not more so than the large players. For example, consider the case of a program manager, Mr. Campbell, and his management of a recovery reconstruction project in a new country to which he had never been. To complicate things further, Mr. Campbell was tasked by his organization’s vice president with completing the project on a fast-track schedule, during the rainy season, and with foreign construction crews unfamiliar with local methods and costs. And, he was offered incentives of a substantial bonus and extra vacation time if the project was completed on time and within budget. Mr. Campbell had leadership, business, and technical skills from his previous disaster recovery experiences, so he felt confident in his abilities to deliver the project as requested. Besides, the bonus money could be used on the vacation of a lifetime, something his wife had been looking forward to for years.
We really don’t know what influences the capacity of a person or entity until it has been tested, implemented or explored in greater detail. At face value, Mr. Campbell appears to have the capacity to execute the project. But is this just an illusion, with the reality lurking in the background? Mr. Campbell accepted his boss’s challenge and incentives without knowledge of local construction standards, on a short schedule in adverse conditions, and with his ego over-riding his common senses. Obviously, the program manager AND the vice president both lack the bureaucratic capacity to deliver the project. Their failure to acknowledge all aspects of the project gave way to financial incentives and not the needs of their beneficiaries. This is a simple, yet real example of the illusions, greed, and lack of capacity that exist in post-disaster recovery environments.
Relevant to the above example is research conducted by Dr. Donald Hoffman, a cognitive psychologist at the University of California at Irvine. Dr. Hoffman postulates that our perception of reality is based in evolution. He states… “Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be.” Or to phrase another way… reality is represented by historical hidden constructs not needed for our survival, and thus our vision is skewed. The point being… what we may perceive as the reality, or limit, of capacity is likely not. There is more to the notion of capacity than what we perceive or expect from just our sensory input. For Mr. Campbell and his boss to be successful on their project, it would mean taking prudent steps in the process, not for their survival/reward or the survival/reward of their company, but for the survival of others… knowing local construction practices, knowing weather patterns most conducive for efficient construction, and forgoing ego-driven incentives that distract from the original project objectives.
Now let’s consider the ultimate challenge to capacity. Assume for the sake of discussion, that people and organizations are able to achieve nirvana, i.e. perfect capacity, with regard to natural disaster preparedness, mitigation, response, recovery, rebuilding, and future risk reduction. Given the present-day global concerns around climate change and the risks presented to the very survival of life as we know it… can our current understanding and level of capacity be utilized to create a forward-thinking framework for addressing the impacts of climate change, and thereby eliminate the risk of extinction?
Roots of the climate change discussion can be traced back to a Stanford Research Institute (SRI) report, Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Polluters, in 1968, published for American Petroleum Institute (API). The term climate change didn’t even exist at that time, and it would be another 7 years before a major contributing factor to climate change, global warming, would break into scientific circles. Just as there is a distinction between natural hazards and natural disasters, there is a distinction between global warming and climate change. Global warming is the upward trend of earth’s surface temperatures and is generally regarded as stemming from the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as the result of human activities. Climate change has a broader connotation in that it encompasses global warming and its impacts on ocean currents, weather pattern changes, sea-level rise, etc. Climate change is a highly-debated priority topic at the moment, has been a political hot potato, is being studied by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and won’t be debated here.
As we have presented, the notion of capacity is complex and multi-faceted, and in light of Dr. Hoffman’s perception of reality, inherently limited. Whereas capacity in the realm of disaster mitigation and recovery has shown itself to be rear-looking, i.e. reactionary based on past events, if capacity is to be of service in climate change adaptation, then it must be forward-looking and visionary. But if capacity is inherently limited, then is it even possible for humanity to make inroads against our greatest threat? Clearly, to do so, will require pure service, sans… political agendas, ego-driven rewards, hesitation, bureaucratic red tape, corruption, and incompetence.
I traveled to Haiti in February 2010 as part of a team of highly skilled professionals to retrieve the body of a six-year-old girl from a partially collapsed building. That effort was in my eyes, an example of what capacity can and should look like. We each had our professional areas of expertise and training, we worked toward a common objective, we worked in a safe manner at all times, we were committed to and resolute in the mission, we had appropriate human and material resources, we were respectful of the unknown family & their loss, we worked without ego-driven agenda, we worked in a sometimes hostile environment consumed by losses few people will ever experience, and we recovered the little girl’s body. We had the capacity that enabled us to accomplish our objective.
Natural disaster mitigation and recovery is a most difficult process. Planners and responders sacrifice on many levels, and survivors can be lost as their lives are forever changed. In 2018, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) published a report estimating that 2 billion people had been affected by natural hazards in the 10 years previous. That is approximately 30% of the world population. The IFRC report concluded with… “In reality, humanitarian action is fundamentally about triage – and with increases in global risks and constraints on resources and access, humanitarians will never have the capacity to address all needs arising from conflicts and disasters.” This conclusion doesn’t bode well for the 100% of the earth’s human and animal populations that will be affected by climate change.
To conclude, the IFRC acknowledges that “…humanitarians will never have the capacity…” and this speaks volumes about the role of capacity in disaster mitigation and recovery. Capacity IS the greatest influencer in natural disaster mitigation and recovery, but humanity has failed to prioritize it. And to follow on with Dr. Hoffman’s premise, perhaps we’re simply not cut out to do so, as we’re too focused on survival and we choose to ignore many things in reality. However, all life on earth will be impacted by climate change. Thus, it is an absolute necessity that we see the reality of capacity if we are to transform it into an effective regimen capable of providing adaptation. Time will tell.