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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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February
2004
Volume 6
- Number 1 |
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One Post-Disaster Mission Too Many? by Dr Ilan Kelman Deputy Director of the
Cambridge
University Centre for Risk in the Built Environment In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Bam, Iran on 26 December 2003, many called for an international, interdisciplinary reconnaissance mission to go to Bam to learn the lessons and to report back. Such field missions are common following disasters. “Lessons Learned” reports are also common. Despite thousands of websites and reams of documents related to lessons learned from earthquakes and other disasters, Bam happened. Instead of taking the same actions which have been done before, we must do better. Not only for Bam, but also for future disasters. Post-disaster field missions must produce direct outputs which people threatened by disaster could use to help themselves, their communities, and their livelihoods survive. The mission team members and those who read the “Lessons Learned” reports must do more than gain knowledge and experience for themselves. They must help the threatened people to help themselves. Activities complementary to post-disaster missions are essential. What else could we do to apply the lessons and knowledge where they will make a difference? How could a definitive connection be made between those who wish to help and those who need help? How could we ensure that we continue to connect with all the right people, from knowledge producers to those whose lives will be saved? I regret that I offer neither answers nor clear direction. Instead, I am trying to comprehend and express what I wish to see. In this article, I attempt some specific suggestions, examples of small actions. None will change the world or save a city. Each hopefully indicates a change in attitude, a statement of commitment, a different approach to thinking and doing, and a tweaking of the path we have been following. Each has obvious dangers and could backfire, but we should work together to overcome the perils and objections. "It can't be done" is not good enough. That might be challenging, but we have chosen a challenging field and we should not be afraid to embrace and tackle the difficulties. Nevertheless, we must avoid taking on challenges purely for the sake of doing something and we must avoid being different just to be different. We must equally avoid post-disaster missions because we have always had post-disaster missions. We must avoid simply adding yet another report to the piles on people's shelves or to the web. The ultimate goal is to escape from our trap of doing only what has been done before. We must answer the question "How will our post-disaster actions stop the event from recurring?" with specifics and without inertia. The suggested actions hopefully do so. They are: (a) Neither Peru nor Jamaica has seen a big earthquake for a few years and Vienna and Basel have not seen a big earthquake for a few centuries. Post-disaster missions require resources, yet such resources are often found quickly. Are there resources for missions to Peru, Jamaica, Vienna, or Basel to check schools and hospitals for earthquake resistance, to retrofit where necessary, and to monitor progress? Are resources more effectively spent on international, interdisciplinary disaster response missions or on international, interdisciplinary disaster mitigation missions? (b) Could we agree on a half-page long resolution or convention requesting that any donor that contributes to a disaster relief operation must allocate 10% of their donation’s value for disaster mitigation for schools and hospitals in another location? The money should be used for doing mitigation activities, not just for assessing what should be done--although assessment, monitoring, and evaluation are essential components of ‘doing’. (c) CERTs (Community Emergency Response Teams) appear to work well--or perhaps someone better informed than me could indicate otherwise! CERTs need to be established worldwide. Even better, they should be CVRTs (Community Vulnerability Reduction Teams) or CSTs (Community Sustainability Teams). CVRTs and CSTs would have emergency preparedness and response as one task, but vulnerability reduction and sustainability processes would be ongoing. Rather than visibility and community involvement mainly during and after events, they would have continued visibility and would become a known and essential part of a community. Such teams would also shift the responsibility and ownership of reducing and responding to disasters from outsiders and experts to the community. Stopping disasters would be everyone’s responsibility rather than the experts’. Responding to events would be everyone’s responsibility rather than looking towards the military or outside help. (d) Members of post-disaster missions should be given training on, and practice with, communicating to non-experts. As a requirement to join the mission, they should undertake to disseminate what they learned to one hundred non-experts. Such dissemination could be in the form of articles in local newspapers or newsletters, a public demonstration, an email to personal not professional contacts, or four visits to classrooms or university lectures with 25 students each. The members must be given extensive support in this endeavour, just as they receive extensive logistical and security support while in the field. (e) Colleagues in Nepal use a simple shake table to demonstrate in public the difference between a normal scale-model house and an earthquake-resistant scale-model house. This powerful visual display captures interest for explaining the principles of earthquake-resistant houses and the low cost and relative simplicity of retrofitting. People then gossip to their neighbours and communities about their experience. We need to collect examples of such simple, effective exercises. We must then imitate and evaluate them. We need to cost these actions in order to compare with the costs of a post-event foreign SAR team and post-event missions. (f) Kofi Annan wisely stated “Building a culture of prevention is not easy...the benefits are not tangible; they are the disasters that did not happen”. Let’s overcome that barrier. First, by ensuring that any disaster reduction measure tangibly contributes to community sustainability. For example, not only retrofit a rural school but also add 5% to the budget to purchase learning materials (possibly books or computers, if appropriate). Thus, increased safety is seen as being exactly the same activity as a better education. Similarly, enlarge the school or build a new one, rather than just retrofitting a dilapidated building. Thus, rather than being specifically about the intangible disaster averted, the project is about tangible education, development, and sustainability outcomes which have disaster mitigation built in. Second, monitor extreme hazard events and publicise and promote disasters which did not happen. For example: ·The lives and money saved in the Seattle 2001, Japan 2003, and California 2003 earthquakes should be calculated. ·Munich Re produces an annual report on natural catastrophes including a top ten list. Could an Annual Non-Disasters Report be produced along with a top ten list of disaster costs averted? ·IFRC publishes an annual World Disasters Report. Could an annual World Disasters Prevented Report be published? ·USAID OFDA implemented a disaster mitigation project in Kinshasa which in its first year saved over $45 for each $1 invested. See http://www.arct.cam.ac.uk/curbe/infosheets.html#factsheet1 for details. We need to imitate this project, and the economic analysis, and promote the results. Regarding disasters, we know what happens and what does not happen in different circumstances. Let’s make the latter as quantitative, tangible, and publicised as the former.
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