Director's Corner

The final session at the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop follows a tradition, established more than five decades ago, where the director of the Natural Hazards Center issues a summary of the meeting and call to action.

This Director’s Corner offers a lightly edited version of the comments I shared at the close of the 51st Annual Natural Hazards Workshop. To write this, I attended some portion of every session and listened for remarks related to this year’s theme of Stronger Together: Building Coalitions for Disaster Risk Reduction. Over the course of three vibrant days, I filled my notebook with insights and quotations from participants at this year’s Workshop. Then, late Tuesday evening and well into Wednesday morning, I distilled those notes into the closing comments that are included below. While this synthesis captures only a fraction of all that was generously shared during the meeting, I hope you know how much your efforts motivate and inspire our work at the Natural Hazards Center. We are already looking forward to welcoming you for the 52nd Annual Natural Hazards Workshop in Boulder.

Please take care of yourself and others.

Lori Peek, Director
Natural Hazards Center

Closing Comments

Last year, as we joined together here at this Workshop, hundreds of volunteers and professional first responders were on the ground in the Texas Hill Country. They were desperately searching for children as well as adults who were still missing after catastrophic floods overtopped the Guadalupe River.

That disaster, the 139 lives lost, and all the missed opportunities to mitigate the risk still weigh heavily on the hearts and minds of so many members of this community.

The continued disinvestment in initiatives that are designed to save lives—including early warning systems, mapping efforts, and flood protection programs—has infuriated members of the hazards and disaster field and shocked grieving families who will never have the chance to welcome their loved ones home again.

What do we do in a moment like this, when a potent mix of grief and anger permeates so much of the public sphere?

At this year’s Workshop, Allison Crimmins of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the fearless leader of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, gently reminded us that these emotions are not something to be feared. Instead, as she said, “When people are angry, they are actually telling us what they value.”

What do we value as a community? What I heard uplifted, affirmed, and reiterated over these past three days included an unwavering commitment to one another, to the people who we serve through our research, policies, and practice, and to the places and cultures that sustain us and give our lives meaning.

This community is passionate and compassionate, caring and contemplative. It is also one that is dedicated to ensuring that scientific evidence and a respect for people’s lived experience remain as the bedrock foundation of all that we do.

When it comes to advancing the cause of disaster risk reduction, it is clear these evidence-based efforts must be informed by a deep understanding of systemic inequality and power dynamics.

As Kate Browne of Colorado State University said, “Systemic inequality is like sedimentation, where historical and contemporary disadvantages layer one on top of the other,” worsening disaster disparities and rendering entire populations at risk.

Those disparities, in tandem with a rapidly warming world, have driven us into a state where, as Jenn Lawrence of the University of Virginia said: “Disaster, once believed to be episodic, has now become chronic.”

In the face of all this, Jo Banner of The Descendants Project offered an important reminder. She encouraged us to never lose sight of the fact that even as we are working diligently to build coalitions for disaster risk reduction, there are powerful political and transnational corporate actors who are investing mightily in counter-coalitions that are driving disaster risk creation. These opposing alliances are attempting to discredit the science that undergirds the work we do, as they simultaneously attack the people—especially the Black, Indigenous, and Brown people—who are leading movements for environmental and social justice.

These counter-coalitions are dismantling our longstanding and most effective hazard mitigation and disaster preparedness programs. They are also stripping away the public health and social initiatives that, to quote the wisdom that B. Kainoa Azama of the Olohana Foundation shared, exist to ensure that “the children are fed, the elders are comfortable, and the women are unafraid.”

Over these past three days, you’ve offered an articulation of the clear and present dangers that we face. But as this community always does, you did not stop at characterizing the problem. You also envisioned a path forward. Together, you generated this year’s call to action as we’ve focused on building coalitions for disaster risk reduction.

As we go forth from here, I heard you offer three forward steps that we can take to unite more people behind the noble causes that so many of you champion every day.

Clearly Define Our Purpose

“What are you going to do with your life?”

That is the question that Bill Tripp of the Karuk Tribe in northwestern California was asked when he was only eight years old.

His response was: “I’m going to bring fire back to my people.”

That clarity of purpose has become his life’s work, and he is now at the center of numerous coalitions that are committed to sustainable ecological practices. Bill told this story to inspire the rest of us to ask ourselves—whether we are 8 or 88 years old: “What are you going to do with your life?”

Questions like this matter, because they clarify our purpose in the world. They also help us to identify who we need to build coalitions with to achieve our collective goals.

Engage More People in the Cause of Disaster Risk Reduction

To make measurable progress in reducing disaster risk, it is abundantly clear that we must find ways to bring many more people into the efforts that we care so much about. This will mean joining people across ages, career stages, disciplines, organizations, and other invisible boundaries that often divide us. It also, as Kathleen Tierney of the University of Colorado Boulder, underscored, will require “championing and involving the people who are most at risk and those who are most affected by disaster.”

Bringing in a spectrum of people, including those at the margins, demands a shift in perspective that Judanne Lennox-Morrison of Texas A&M University expressed. As she said: “We need to shed the focus on deficits. No one wants to be called vulnerable, so we need to shift to an assets-based strategy.”

By putting on a new set of lenses, we can see people holistically, in all their complexity. This will also allow us to better understand and identify the many strengths and resources that people can bring to the table, regardless of how they are socially positioned.

Commit to the Ongoing Act of Community Building

Ramsay Taum of the Life Enhancement Institute of the Pacific, observed that in many places, “we treat community as a noun, rather than a verb.”

If we can come to recognize that community is not a fixed and static category, but instead is something that we actively create, then we are better positioned to truly begin the work of coalition building. The verb—the act—will entail active listening, humility, trust- and relationship-building, power-sharing, accountability, and a commitment to reciprocity.

In addition, as Amite Dominick of the Texas Prison Community Advocates said, building coalitions also calls us to remember that “Honoring what I say I’m going to do means everything.”

To this hazards and disaster community, thank you for holding these values so dear and honoring us with your commitments, your expertise, and your wisdom. As you continue with the vital work that you do, please remember to take care of yourself and others.

With that, I declare your 51st Annual Natural Hazards Workshop adjourned.