Sustainability and Disaster Recovery
Applying the principles of sustainability when making decisions can help communities avoid the pitfalls of adopting a course of action without realizing it will have detrimental impacts at another place or time. Ideally, all communities would routinely adopt a long-term view and incorporate sustainability ideals into all aspects of their comprehensive planning process—whether making development decisions, preparing for a disaster, implementing mitigation, or undertaking any other program.
In the absence of this ideal situation, however, a person concerned with avoiding losses due to hazards and disasters must look for opportunities to integrate sustainability with mitigation measures wherever possible. One fertile field for this integration is the disaster recovery period.
A disaster brings temporary changes to a community. People think about problems they normally do not consider—the risks they face from hazards, the quality of local housing, ways in which the community could be better planned and constructed, the local scenic and other natural resources, livability. At the same time, public officials have the media attention that enables them to garner support for innovative ideas. A disaster forces a community to make a seemingly endless series of decisions—some large, some small, some easy, and some quite difficult. Technical and expert advice becomes available from public and private sources. Financial assistance flows into the community, enabling it to tackle more ambitious projects than would normally be the case.
These changes can be viewed as opportunities to rebuild in a better way, instead of succumbing to the natural desire to put things back the way they were as soon as possible. They can provide a chance for a community to implement forward-looking activities that for one reason or another (usually financial or political) have not been undertaken, including improvements in lifestyle, safety, economic opportunity, or the environment. After a disaster, a community must take action to recover, so incorporating principles of sustainability into that process often does not involve much additional effort.
Hazards managers already work to build mitigation into many recovery activities. For example, they often use the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s postdisaster programs and other initiatives that in many cases specifically call for mitigation. However, they could go still further, and ensure that the mitigation measures that are put in place promote—or at least do not undermine—sustainable communities.