The Future of Long Term Recovery

Last week marked the 1 year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy making landfall in the mid-Atlantic region. These large scale events offer an opportunity that many communities aren't afforded, an exact quantification of progress, a cataloguing of what's been done, and a questioning of what has not. Many smaller events, like the flooding in Texas or the recent blizzard in North Dakota are examples of disasters that strike, but that won't necessarily be revisited by our collective consciousness--they are blips that quickly fade into the noise of the 24 hour news cycle. While larger events like: the Haiti Earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, and the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami too will fade in time, their anniversaries are opportunities to refocus attention at the less straightforward side of disasters--Long Term Recovery.

Long Term Recovery as a topic for general discussion is one that doesn't get much attention even though it's a process that all communities impacted by an event must go through; partially because Long Term Recovery (LTR) isn't sexy, but more because it's incredibly intricate and difficult to distill into easily digestible stories. Last week there were countless articles asking why more hasn't been done, and whether the progress that has been made is the right direction to be headed in. And while it's great that attention is being paid to the recovery of communities that have largely fallen out of the spotlight, I'm not convinced that it's a viable way to impact the national dialogue on improving what's being done.

Recovery Continuum, NDRF: http://www.fema.gov/pdf/recoveryframework/ndrf.pdf

And therein lies the challenge--how do you change the recovery paradigm? How do you impact what's being done? In the world of response, both short term and intermediate, the loop from start to finish is anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. This quick lifecycle makes it easier to try new things and track their relative success or failure. With Long Term Recovery, the identification of best practices and the integration of their revisions are different because LTR operates on timelines measured in years, not months. In addition to LTR's duration, there is no clearly identified "finish" line, what a completed recovery for one community looks like may not necessarily coincide with that of another. This discrepancy creates additional challenges when trying to compare the impacts of programming carried over from one LTR response to another.

In recognition of these challenges, FEMA issued a report spanning 7 years of Long Term Recovery, from 2004-2011. This report was created in an effort to provide guidance and a baseline from which to codify best practices implemented during the LTR timeframe. While shorter than many federal documents, clocking in at 69 pages, it's a long read that can be difficult to dig into if you're not a) interested in the subject or b) in the midst of navigating LTR.

So, LTR is tough to improve upon because it operates on a timeline that makes reviewing successful best practices and evolving them difficult, and the federal reporting to aid in that process isn't written for the audience it would benefit the most. So the question remains...how do you influence Long Term Recovery?

http://www.fema.gov/pdf/rebuild/ltrc/2011_report.pdf

The best way to positively influence the recovery paradigm is to take the nuggets of wisdom compiled from previous events and integrate them into preparedness planning and frameworks (I realize that isn't groundbreaking). In working with communities that have gone through the paces of early recovery and are faced with the dramatic slowing of progress as LTR gets off the ground, people have generally said the same thing, that they wish they knew then what they know now. While papers have been written on the challenges of creating preparedness messaging that resonates with communities that creates action, the disconnect that exists between words and action in this realm is surprising given the facts:

• Survivors have communicated that they wish they knew what to expect during response and recovery
• There is a federal focus on building resilience involving the whole of community
• By investing $1 in preparedness, $5 is saved in recovery
• The trend in major events causing billions in damages is increasing
• A Climate Change Executive Order calling for federal agencies and local governments to include the impacts of climate change into their planning for future projects was just issued

In light of the above information and the fact that it's nothing many of us haven't been aware of for some time, why is making progress in the one area of the disaster lifecycle where it matters most, seemingly impossible? With so many organizations and state agencies out there who focus on building community resilience as a part of their mission, coupled with the availability of federal funding and the beginnings of a call for elected officials to become better versed in the language of emergency response, who would've thought that gaining ground in this area would be such a fight?

Nonprofit response and recovery plays catch up, always starting after the event has done the damage. Any efficiencies gained on the reactive side of the disaster spectrum would be welcome, but I believe there is near universal agreement that the opportunities exist within the realm of preparedness. So if history has illustrated the need, science tells us that the future is going to bring more of the same or worse, math backs up the economics of investing in preparedness, and the government has said that the focus should be on building community resilience--what exactly is holding things up?

The future of LTR doesn't exist in a new program or refinement of its model. The future exists in finding the political will to fund what we already know, and give communities a chance to implement changes before the articles written commemorating the next event that irrevocably altered the fabric of a community, are about them.

The Road to Recovery

An area where I believe significant benefit can be derived that would aid in the mitigation of the groundhogs day scenario many communities face when responding to and recovering from disasters, is to spend time looking at how other communities faced similar events and then adapt and evolve what they did to suit the idiosyncrasies of their community.

In an effort to see what's being done along those lines, I've made an effort to get my hands on more articles coming from the world of academia, to broaden and challenge my views on what can and should be done to promote resilience at a local level. I can't remember how I stumbled upon this one, but it comes to us from the 'Lincoln Institute of Land Policy' and is titled "The Road to Recovery."

https://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/dl/2259_1598_The_Road_to_Recovery_0713LL.pdf

While any event adversely affecting individuals and families is unfortunate, it's good to know that there are people out there looking at and learning from previous disasters trying to find commonalities and lessons that can be shared. While it's good to know, I have a concern, with no disrespect to the good people at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, who's reading articles of this nature outside of the academic community and socially challenged individuals like me? How are we broadening the circle of knowledge and experience when articles that examine and try to synthesize what's worked and what hasn't, exist in obscure publications that no one outside the academic circles have heard of?

I say this because what this article covers is important; it examines the role of the various levels of government in recovery and rebuilding trying to find commonalities in "disparate environments" to help the recovery of future communities impacted by similar disasters. At a quick 8 pages you can consider this bathroom reading...but it wasn't the length that struck me though, it was what was said about Collaboration:

Supporting Collaboration: Building sustainable capacity and capability for long-term recovery through genuine collaboration and coordination, both horizontally among local groups and vertically among different levels of government. Vertically organized, hierarchical agencies—with clear organizational charts and streamlined channels of communication—are usually not well suited to manage disaster recovery, because the lack of “connecting flow” across vertical hierarchies limits collaboration as well as the flow of new and updated information among organizations. U.S. National agencies involved in recovery, for example, are more adept at administering individual programs than they are at solving complex problems that cut across governmental institutional boundaries. By contrast, horizontally organized agencies can promote interagency coordination and information sharing, allowing individual groups to adapt to new contexts and information while remaining responsible to their parent organization. 

(Pg 18)

And...
The reason I was struck was because it's brutally honest and makes sense given what I've seen during the transition from response to recovery. How this plays out at a local level is that Long Term Recovery Committees (LTRCs) are the horizontally organized representative coalitions of local organizations described above tasked with solving the complex problem of Long Term Community Recovery.

Quick sidebar: Long Term Recovery Committees are coalitions of local organizations and agencies established to administer the long term recovery of a community, allocating dollars to individuals and families who go through the unmet needs / case management process while organizing the voluntary workforce to stretch recovery dollars. For more information on LTRCs go here.

So if LTRCs, these horizontally organized coalitions are the right tool for the job and the research reinforces it, why aren't more communities being educated and walked through the formation of an LTRC before the next event as a part of resilience programming?

When LTRCs are setup after a disaster there is often considerable turbulence due to: the stress of going through response, the amount of money they are responsible for, the politics and influence at play, the newness of the relationships of the constituent members, and the fact that a community is looking to them for guidance and direction on how best to quickly and effectively put the pieces back together.

By proactively addressing this, we would give communities time to deal with the many challenges that come with LTRC formation without the pressure of an ongoing response effort. This luxury would expedite the organization of how monetary donations are handled as well as work to fast track the start of case management and ultimately the work of repair and rebuild.

Don't get me wrong, creating an LTRC is no small feat, but if the upsides are so great and every community impacted by a disaster will need to form one, why isn't more being done?

LTRC Resources
Church World Service leads the way with free LTRC training, and as linked above, National VOAD has a manual that outlines the processes and best practices that come with forming an LTRC. In addition to the material resources available, there are countless communities that have gone through this with just as many individuals to tap for advice and guidance.

Lets start building the foundations required for each aspect of disaster response and recovery now so that when something happens this isn't a surprise, this isn't the first time people are meeting and hearing about LTRCs. This is the low hanging fruit with a potential for significant impact...proactive education is free, resources are available, and yet we see the groundhogs day scenario play out again and again making the road to recovery a long one.

A Lesson in Sharing

We talk about learning from the past so that we don't make the same mistakes in the future, systems are setup to help facilitate the sharing of lessons learned...but how effective are we at actually sharing?

How many of you know what LLIS.gov is? More importantly, how many of you actually have access to it? That repository of information is an example of a body of "best practice" that sits under-utilized due to access issues. LLIS is the "Lessons Learned Information Sharing site hosted by DHS. Lessons learned do no good when they're locked away...especially when there are communities out there thirsty for information; for better or worse, the sharing of what we do needs to be done better.

Lessons tend to be shared at conferences amongst smaller groups of people who have a lot of the same experiences and knowledge base. Given the variety of individuals who are getting involved at a local level and the growth of local actors in response activities, the need to know what's working and especially what isn't, has to be pushed out on a broader scale. The folks at Occupy have created a mini-documentary chronicling what worked and didn't and I would imagine that based on the success of their operations, many will watch and try to replicate what they did when a disaster strikes in their community. By Occupy chronicling what they did, how they did it, and intentionally pushing it out to the world, they are taking a more aggressive approach to transparency then I've seen the response community do in the past. And while it may not be perfect, I imagine it will be honest, straightforward and will resonate with those would-be responders in communities preparing for the next event.

I look forward to watching the full length production from Occupy and am hopeful that it isn't a prescriptive "how to" video but more of a chronicle of their experiences for others to learn from. Either way, I think the sharing of this information is a step in the right direction and hope that it spurs conversations about how it can be done better by more people in all facets of disaster.

The National Conference on Volunteering and Service

This week finds me in our Nation's Capital attending The National Conference on Volunteering and Service, a marathon 4 days of workshops, talkshops, plenary's, and more...

this is the "and more"

I will be adding my two cents on Thursday when I, along with fellow disaster-ite Travis Gibson, will be presenting on empowering local response in disaster through expanded coordination models. An important topic given the growing participation of spontaneous groups following disaster, and a good audience given the over 200+ Hands On Network Affiliates who will be at the conference as well as more than a handful of State Commissions on Volunteering.

If my posting suffers it's probably because I'm in a baked goods induced coma...all they have to eat at these conferences are sweet treats.

I'm looking forward to all the things that come with attending an event of this magnitude (did I mention it was 4 days?), the people, the ideas, the possibilities, etc...and hope to post on one or two of them.

If you happen to be in, or call Washington, DC your home...let me know.