With an increasing emphasis on a “whole of community” approach, philanthropic organizations, NGOs, and businesses play an integral role in preparing for and responding to disasters. These stakeholders can—and often do—contribute substantially to reducing the costs of disasters, improving response efficiency, and increasing overall resilience. Economies of scale in specific industries, as well as access to resources (financial and in-kind), can be leveraged at each stage in the emergency management cycle.
As noted earlier, success in governmental resilience efforts often depends in large part on effective communication among key players. This is also true regarding philanthropic, nongovernmental, and for-profit organizations, which can achieve disaster-related goals through improved communication and coordination with government entities before, during, and after disasters. Additionally, all levels of government can devote resources and provide incentives to foster public-private relationships and decrease the need for federal spending. Philanthropic, nongovernmental, and for-profit organizations can also address gaps in public-sector responses to catastrophes (e.g., mental health).
As noted in this report, many philanthropic organizations, NGOs, and private companies have extensive, hands-on experience and valuable capabilities in supporting emergency management and disaster relief efforts. Government and the private sector both benefit from coordinating and communicating as openly as possible about what they can and cannot bring to the table in order to address the full range of disaster resilience requirements, prevent unnecessary duplication in efforts, and streamline response activities. To support these efforts as efficiently and effectively as possible, each party must understand the parameters of the relationship, the objectives of each member, and the requirements and plans for sharing information and employing resources. PPPs, emergency operation centers, MOUs, and accessible databases all serve as mediums through which to do so.
FINDING #9: GOVERNMENT AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR HAVE IMPROVED COMMUNICATION IN RECENT YEARS, BUT COORDINATION EFFORTS REQUIRE MORE GIVE-AND-TAKE.
During the response phase of a disaster, all levels of government often want information from the private sector on the impact of the disaster on businesses, especially critical infrastructure sectors.1 Correspondingly, businesses interested in providing disaster relief need situational awareness to determine the who, what, where, when, and how of contributing resources.2 To effectively fulfill both needs, many jurisdictions have incorporated the private sector into their established emergency operation centers, which coordinate response activities across all participating entities at their respective levels of government as well as among partners in other levels. Others have even set up specific business emergency operation centers (BEOCs) to focus exclusively on public-private efforts. For example, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana set up the LA BEOC, which began using a physical facility, a web portal, and e-mail and text alerts to communicate and coordinate among the state emergency management agency, state economic development agency, VOAD, and various private-sector partners.3 Communities benefited from the LA BEOC after hurricanes Ike and Gustav in 2008, when the center helped to partner restaurants with shelters to provide people with food during their displacement. Experts estimate that effort saved taxpayers approximately $1.5 million by replacing the need for federally purchased meals.4
FEMA has developed a National BEOC (NBEOC) that seeks to provide a platform for two-way information sharing between the public and private sector to identify capabilities-needs gaps, leverage national resources to support state and local jurisdictions, and prevent duplicative efforts.5 However, the existence of the NBEOC can result in unnecessarily duplicative efforts for businesses that prefer to limit their coordination efforts to one level of government.6 Additionally, a national headquarters team may have trouble providing the tactical-level support required of a BEOC. Despite these challenges, the NBEOC can prove effective by providing information for disasters that occur across state boundaries. Businesses may need to know the individual transportation regulations of multiple states, such as weight limits and any corresponding waivers, which the NBEOC could aggregate and provide.7 Moreover, it could host a web portal that allows jurisdictions and businesses to participate as verified users and actively search and update points of contact, along with resource needs and capabilities. While state BEOCs have the advantage of providing localized knowledge, such a national database could help prevent duplicative efforts and streamline response for disasters involving multiple states.
In addition to BEOCs, other PPPs offer ways in which government, businesses, NGOs, and philanthropic organizations can synchronize efforts and improve exchanges of information during all phases of the emergency management cycle. PPPs can be organized within government or as private entities. Their missions can be broad in scope or focus on specific objectives, such as individual critical infrastructure and key resource sectors, volunteer and donation coordination, and business continuity of operations.8
Many jurisdictions across the country have developed PPPs to address these different areas of concern. For instance, Iowa established the Safeguard Iowa Partnership, which involves various public agencies, private businesses, and other organizations and develops communication and coordination tools such as standardized business surveys, access to public health alerts, a resource registry, and a portal to connect volunteers and donors to the state and VOAD.9 Additionally, the model promotes self-sustainability through the pursuit of multiple funding streams, including grants, memberships, and the state government.10
While this example illustrates the potential benefits of PPPs, many businesses remain reluctant to participate in such programs due to privacy and favoritism concerns. Some businesses choose to donate resources to nonprofits like the Red Cross or VOAD, or they contribute directly to communities instead of contracting with government. Such methods of participation relieve businesses of disclosure and intellectual property concerns but still provide needed supplies to damaged areas. However, this uncoordinated approach, in some instances, requires government to stretch limited resources and spend money to contract logistical capabilities for supply distribution to areas unserved by the private sector.11 Some PPPs have used MOUs to outline the shared purpose of the relationship, detail responsibilities and commitments of each party, guarantee the protection of confidential information to avoid the burden of contract regulations, explicitly identify program requirements, and ease the privacy concerns of businesses.12 Still, only 28 percent of PPPs use MOUs, mainly due to issues with governmental conflicts of interest in potentially favoring one business over another.13
To solve these problems, PPP participants can learn from the national-level effort to build relationships with the private sector. FEMA established a rotating private-sector representative in the National Response Coordination Center, which coordinates information from all businesses in the industry.14 By implementing this rotating system for a member of each industry and identifying their role as compilers and distributors of information to all other participating organizations, PPP participants might spur government to agree to MOUs and, in the process, potentially encourage more businesses to participate.
FINDING #10: CROWDSOURCING DATA OFFERS MANY OPPORTUNITIES FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND BUSINESSES TO LEVERAGE AVAILABLE INFORMATION AND SOLVE A RANGE OF ISSUES.
In addition to partnering with businesses, government has the opportunity to collaborate with individuals. The idea of the “whole of community” approach to disaster resilience starts at the individual level. The emergence of the Internet, smartphones, and social media platforms has presented government with new opportunities to engage citizens and encourage personal preparedness. The federal government initiatives and campaigns include ready.gov, disasterassistance.gov, America’s PrepareAthon!, and the Citizen Corps, all of which seek to actively involve individuals at each stage of the emergency management cycle. Many state and local jurisdictions and other organizations also have similar programs for citizen involvement. These initiatives often have websites, multiple social media accounts, and smartphone applications.
Although different levels of government have exploited technological resources to distribute information, collecting and analyzing data from the public remains a growth area for emergency management. Crowdsourcing data through social media networks can provide agencies with situational awareness and help direct resources to the hardest hit areas. During response efforts for Hurricane Sandy, FEMA used geographic data gathered by volunteers and compiled by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team to map damaged areas.15 Continuing to research and develop these types of capabilities can reduce costs, better direct response efforts, and inform communities of areas for improvement.
As noted earlier, the federal government’s definition of resilience lists three capability requirements: withstand, adapt, and rapidly recover.16 In improving these capabilities, PPPs have made great headway throughout the emergency management cycle. However, additional actions will be required in order to limit the impact of disasters on society; such actions include empowering small businesses and planning for the long-term effects on a community’s health and sustainability.
SMALL BUSINESSES
FINDING #11: SMALL BUSINESSES NEED IMPROVED INCENTIVES TO TAKE ACTION TO EFFECTIVELY PREPARE FOR THE EFFECTS OF FUTURE DISASTERS.
Small businesses in disaster-prone areas often lack the ability (either in capabilities or connections) to provide meaningful support to government, NGOs, and philanthropic organizations; rather, they require assistance to rebound after a disaster.17 Many efforts exist to help these businesses protect and mitigate against disasters, so that continuity of operations (COOP) or quick recovery can become viable options. FEMA runs a voluntary program, PS-PrepTM, for businesses to adopt standards through a formal accreditation process.18 These standards seek to help businesses develop plans, protect data, minimize impacts on operations and financial losses, and improve reliability and recognition in the eyes of clients and suppliers.19 Additionally, the American Red Cross runs a self-assessment program based upon these standards. The federal-level SBA also provides a list of tips that focus on insurance coverage and loan determinations. Despite such efforts to inform and prepare small businesses, a recent survey indicated that only 49 percent maintain a COOP plan.20 Furthermore, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, only 10 percent of small businesses in the impacted area reconsidered their disaster preparedness plans, and 70 percent did not believe their businesses were at risk for future disasters of similar magnitude.21
The greatest impediments to improving disaster preparedness among small businesses are cost and resource constraints. To address this issue, government and larger companies may play a greater role in incentivizing preparedness and mitigation for smaller businesses. For the efforts required to participate in the aforementioned COOP programs, a push by different jurisdictions to partner larger businesses that have more experience and resources with smaller businesses may help increase involvement in the programs. The United States can also learn from the efforts of countries such as Japan when considering methods for reducing the cost burden of developing mitigation techniques. For example, the Development Bank of Japan became the first financial institution to offer better borrowing terms to businesses that take steps to prepare and mitigate against disaster threats.22 The bank evaluates each company based on 18 metrics, including business continuity awareness and training programs and redundancy of information systems.23 Moreover, after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, Japan’s Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation began offering, among other initiatives, low-interest loans for small businesses to improve the structure of their facilities to align with their business COOP plans.24 Financial institutions and different levels of government in the United States could offer similar opportunities to small businesses in order to improve their resilience.
LONG-TERM CONSIDERATIONS: HEALTH AND SUSTAINABILITY
FINDING #12: PLANNING FOR THE LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF DISASTERS CAN BE EASILY OVERLOOKED IN DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND RECOVERY. PRIVATE-SECTOR EFFORTS ENCOURAGE GOVERNMENT TO HEED LONG-TERM PLANNING.
Disasters have many direct and indirect effects on the long-term health and sustainability of a community. Health, in this context, has many dimensions, ranging from economic and environmental to social and cultural.25 There is a tendency to focus on short-term effects like the immediate care of individuals and the restoration of business operations when the private sector plans for disasters. However, a great and overlooked potential exists for the private sector to supplement government efforts on mitigation and fill the gaps in marginalized recovery areas (e.g., mental health).
As outlined in its third climate report and its initiative to invest in transportation infrastructure earlier this year, the Obama administration has prioritized climate change mitigation and hardening and updating critical infrastructure.26 The private sector can play a dual role in mitigating the effects of disasters. First, businesses, NGOs, philanthropic organizations, and citizens can take steps to lessen the impact of disasters on their own establishments. Second, these actors can invest in the improvements of the rest of the community. As discussed earlier, the federal executive and legislative branches have already implemented certain tools to support mitigation activities and can take additional steps along with the private sector to increase participation. The public and private sectors can also address the second point through increased involvement and coordination.
There are many barriers to successful relationships between the public and private sectors in investing in the resilience of the whole community, especially in terms of coordinating efforts through different management structures. However, where such relationships do exist, they can exert an extraordinary, long-term impact on the community. For instance, the Health Impact Project, a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, supports the use of health impact assessments (HIAs), which provide policymakers at all levels of government with valuable information on the potential effects of construction and recovery projects on different environmental, social, and other health elements of the community.27 The use of HIAs is quickly growing in the United States, with 10 times as many completed in 2013 as 2007.28 They became particularly useful in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, with states, cities, and municipalities looking to determine the best land use policies, weigh the costs and benefits of buyouts, and avoid health hazards such as sewage overflows experienced after the storm.29 This model, which fully accounts for the effects of disaster resilience on the entire community ecosystem and leverages the resource capabilities of the private sector to inform policymakers, could help provide metrics to establish the full impacts of disasters and assist government in determining risk, vulnerability, and priorities for investments.
The Water Institute of the Gulf represents another example of the private sector leveraging its capabilities to support government. Established with funding from the state of Louisiana and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, this nonprofit organization was created to help implement Louisiana’s 2012 Coastal Restoration Master Plan with substantiated, scientific input to coastal planning.30 With the goals of reducing disaster risk, increasing sustainability, and improving community resilience, the Water Institute has also taken its analytical and modeling techniques from the Gulf and applied them internationally to similar geographic regions, among them the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. This form of PPP demonstrates the advantage of allowing an independent organization to augment the resources of government and bring interests of the public and private sector together to develop long-term solutions to disaster-related issues.
In addition to planning for all macro-level factors of disaster impact on communities, addressing the long-term effect on individuals’ psychological well-being likely warrants more attention from both the public and private sectors. Individuals affected by disasters can experience a variety of stressors from trauma to physical and economic adversity.31 These stressors can lead members of the affected population to display signs of anxiety and mood disorders, including but not limited to PTSD. Women, youth, and individuals with low economic status represent vulnerable populations that are especially susceptible to such disorders because they are disproportionately affected by the physical destruction wrought by disaster events.32 Providing these individuals with long-term care and treatment takes a robust effort from the whole community. One study determined that expectations of unhelpful service and preferences for alternative coping mechanisms (e.g., family, faith) deterred significantly more people from seeking help than the stigma associated with mental health.33 This finding illustrates the importance of communicating the availability and importance of services. New York City used such a strategy after Hurricane Sandy with its ad campaign for Project Hope, a federally funded program for free crisis counseling services.34 Many government agencies, businesses, NGOs, and philanthropic organizations—including the FEMA Crisis Counseling program, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), State Disaster Behavioral Health Coordinators, and trained American Red Cross and VOAD volunteers—have capabilities to address behavioral health needs immediately after disasters.35
Governments should provide behavioral health organizations with greater flexibility to address the long-term mental health impacts of disasters and ensure counseling and treatment services are available to victims on an extended basis. Congress could help address this need by increasing the currently limited ability for SAMHSA to take a small percentage from other programs’ budgets to fund its Emergency Response Grants, which help communities partner with behavioral health organizations to best meet needs and transition to long-term care.36 The collection, analysis, and distribution of information on this topic will likely prove beneficial to affected individuals recovering from the psychological effects of disasters, while also assisting communities in educating and promoting awareness of this issue.
1. Study participant, one-on-one, not-for-attribution interview, March 2014.
2. Ibid.
3. FEMA, “State Partnership—Louisiana Business Emergency Operations Center,” http://www.fema.gov/pdf/privatesector/labeoc.pdf.
4. Business Civic Leadership Center, The Role of Business in Disaster Response (Washington, DC: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2012), 17, http://ccc.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/documents/files/Role%20of%20Business%20in%20Disaster%20Response.pdf.
5. FEMA, “National Business Operation Center,” http://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1852-25045-2704/fema_factsheet_nbeoc_final_508.pdf.
6. Study participant, one-on-one, not-for-attribution interview, March 2014.
7. Study participant, one-on-one, not-for-attribution interview, May 2014.
8. International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) and National Incident Management Systems and Advanced Technologies (NIMSAT) Institute, “Compendium of Public-Private Partnerships for Emergency Management,” October 1, 2012, 11, http://www.padres-ppp.org/NimsatPPP/resources/Final%20PPP%20Report_101812.pdf.
9. Ibid.
10. Dan Stoneking, “The Role of Public-Private Partnerships in Disaster Preparedness and Resilience” (remarks made at a CSIS panel discussion held January 30, 2013), http://csis.org/event/role-public-private-partnerships-disaster-preparedness-and-resilience.
11. Study participant, one-on-one, not-for-attribution interview, May 2014.
12. IAEM and NIMSAT, “Compendium of PPPs,” 56–57.
13. Ibid., 12.
14. Study participant, one-on-one, not-for-attribution interview, May 2014.
15. FEMA, “Hurricane Sandy FEMA After-Action Report.”
16. Obama, “PPD-8.”
17. UNISDR, “Small Businesses: Impact of Disasters and Building Resilience,” 5.
18. FEMA, “Being Prepared: Makes Good Business Sense,” http://www.fema.gov/pdf/privatesector/FEMA_PS-Prep_One-Pager_Generic.pdf.
19. Ibid.
20. FedEx Corp., “Despite Recent Disasters, Survey Shows Most Small Business Owners Still Not Getting Prepared,” May 2, 2013, news.van.fedex.com/despite-recent-disasters-survey-shows-most-small-business-owners-still-not-getting-prepared.
21. Ibid.
22. World Economic Forum, Global Risk 2012, 7th ed. (Geneva: World Economic Forum, 2012), 32, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalRisks_Report_2012.pdf.
23. Ibid., 32–33.
24. Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry/Japan Small Business Research Institute, “2012 White Paper on Small and Medium Enterprises in Japan,” September 2012, 229, http://www.chusho.meti.go.jp/pamflet/hakusyo/H24/download/2012hakusho_eng.pdf.
25. Study participant, one-on-one, not-for-attribution interview, April 2014.
26. White House, “Building a 21st Century Infrastructure: Modernizing Infrastructure Permitting,” fact sheet, May 14, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/14/fact-sheet-building-21st-century-infrastructure-modernizing-infrastructu; White House, “What Climate Change Means for Regions across America and Major Sectors of the Economy,” fact sheet, May 6, 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/06/fact-sheet-what-climate-change-means-regions-across-america-and-major-se.
27. Study participant, one-on-one, not-for-attribution interview, April 2014.
28. The Pew Charitable Trusts/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “Health Impact Project,” fact sheet, September 22, 2013, http://www.healthimpactproject.org/body/Health-Impact-Project-fact-sheet-calling-card-09-22-13.pdf.
29. Study participant, one-on-one, not-for-attribution interview, April 2014; Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy, August 2013, 136, http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=HSRebuildingStrategy.pdf.
30. Study participant, one-on-one, not-for-attribution interview, July 2014.
31. Sandro Galea et al., “Exposure to Hurricane-Related Stressors and Mental Illness after Hurricane Katrina,” Archives of General Psychiatry 64, no. 12 (December 2007): 1427–1434.
32. Ibid., 1433; Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, “Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy,” 171.
33. Ibid., 33.
34. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “Building a More Resilient New York City,” July 1, 2013, http://www.rwjf.org/en/blogs/new-public-health/2013/07/building_a_more_resi.html.
35. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “HHS Disaster Behavioral Health Concept of Operations,” rev. ed., February 2014, 12, http://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/planning/abc/Documents/dbh-conops-2014.pdf.
36. Ibid., 32; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Fiscal Year 2015 Justification of Estimates for Appropriations Committees (Washington, DC: HHS, 2014), 41, http://beta.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/fy-2015-budget-cj.pdf.