What is Community Resilience?
Our current disaster preparedness system is built on the basis of mutual aid. When one community has an extraordinary event then mutual aid is the perfect solution because it allows other nearby communities who are not experiencing the same event to contribute resources. However, when there is an area or nation or worldwide disaster then mutual aid will no longer be a viable solution since there will be no available resources from neighboring communities. We must therefore develop truly Resilient Communities communities that have planned, prepared and tested the capacity to take care of themselves in the event of a disaster.
Designing and implementing a Resilient Community will not be an easy task. It will require the development of a community ethic of individual preparedness rather than the current 911 mentality. It will require the mobilization of schools, business, social groups, service organizations and churches in totally new ways. And it will require periodic testing to ensure that we have actually created Resilient Communities.
We have to put the Public back into Community Planning for Disasters.
What are some of the problems
We must mobilize the American public if we are to have any hope of successfully coping with a true disaster. That mobilization must be based on scientifically sound facts, clear and honest communication of those facts and specific guidance on what each individual, business, school and neighborhood organization must do to be prepared
World Trade Center and Katrina both were relatively small-scale disasters that exemplify this, particularly in the recovery phase.
A local Disaster would overwhelm the current system and our existing health care resources either we develop resilient communities or tens of thousands will die who might be saved
Lots of unanswered questions
There is a big difference between being an appointed official and being an elected official. Do not confuse having the legal authority to do something with having a mandate from the people the two are very different and neither is sufficient alone.
Appointed officials are accountable only to their boss, elected officials are accountable to the public a very big difference
Who will help the at-risk/special needs populations prepare for a disaster? Who will help them during a disaster?
How and who will ration non-medical resources such as food and fuel?
How will school closings be coordinated with childcare responsibilities and leave from work?
Why are different jurisdictions using different planning assumptions ? This will confuse the public and reduce their confidence in those making the predictions.
Who will protect health care facilities, pharmacies and food stores from rioters?
The veneer of civilization is very thin how we will deal with panic followed by looting followed by riots? Particularly when we will have so few law enforcement personnel available for duty.
What exactly should an individual do to be prepared? - what supplies and for how long 3/7/30/90 days ?
What is the role of pharmacies?
A recent National Journal article talked about Wal-Marts response during Katrina that illustrates the vertical silo problem in government and business plans:
Preparedness will require coordination among federal, state and local government and partners in the private sector and citizens from every walk of life.
An informed and responsive public is essential to minimizing the health effects of a disaster and the resulting consequences to society.
We have to start thinking in new ways and the public health people have to take the lead if the health and survival of the public is your mission.
Communication
The public health professionals CANNOT prepare our communities for a disaster without the full participation and support of the public. And that participation and support must be courted, earned and respected. Without the public you will fail and if you fail we will all suffer and many will die.
Who and how are we pulling all the pieces together? No one is doing horizontal and integrated disaster planning. Government is planning for government and business is planning for business etc but no one is looking across the board horizontally.
At the World Trade Center the ICS system was strained At Katrina the ICS system collapsed In a Pandemic the current ICS system would not work
Since a large scale disaster would not be a single point disaster and since there would be few if any mutual aid resources, we need a dramatically different incident command system model so that federal, state, and local government authorities would be able to work hand in hand with citizen groups within resilience networks.
Consensus on what individual citizens need to do to be prepared
Maximum push on informing the public on what they need to do
Training for Neighborhoods would have Resilient Teams coverage in every neighborhood and every business area and every educational institution. Each of those teams will need to have greatly expanded medical training. If we have an avian flu pandemic there will be virtually no medical facilities with capacity to treat the vast majority of the victims and we will also have nowhere to send the non-flu trauma and other emergency cases. Our only hope is to build resilience in each neighborhood and family. Teams will need to be trained to perform triage, provide extended and extensive primary medical care and to perform a mortuary function. This will be a very challenging effort as it will be pushing the envelope to get non-medical professionals prepared and willing to undertake these difficult triage, treatment and mortuary functions.
Develop home care plans. We need to build capacity at the family level to diagnose and treat many illnesses for whom there will be no available capacity in the totally overwhelmed hospital facilities. Individual families will need to be trained to take care of most of their emergency needs without reliance on the normal fire, police and public works services. To perform these expanded roles we will need to have pre-positioned emergency supplies in every neighborhood and each family will need to create its own multi-week supply of emergency food, water and supplies.
Peter Carpenter 2007