Post-disaster Community Recovery Research Articles

Untangling the relationship between power outage and population activity recovery in disasters

Despite recognition of the relationship between infrastructure resilience and community recovery, very limited empirical evidence exists regarding the extent to which the disruptions in and restoration of infrastructure services contribute to the speed of community recovery. To address this gap, this study investigates the relationship between community and infrastructure systems in the context of hurricane impacts, focusing on the recovery dynamics of population activity and power infrastructure restoration. Empirical observational data were utilized to analyze the extent of impact, recovery duration, and recovery types of both systems in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. The study reveals three key findings. First, power outage duration positively correlates with outage extent until a certain impact threshold is reached. Beyond this threshold, restoration time remains relatively stable regardless of outage magnitude. This finding underscores the need to strengthen power infrastructure, particularly in extreme weather conditions, to minimize outage restoration time. Second, power was fully restored in 70% of affected areas before population activity levels normalized. This finding suggests the role infrastructure functionality plays in post-disaster community recovery. Quicker power restoration did not equate to rapid population activity recovery due to other possible factors such as transportation, housing damage, and business interruptions. Finally, if power outages last beyond two weeks, community activity resumes before complete power restoration, indicating adaptability in prolonged outage scenarios. This implies the capacity of communities to adapt to ongoing power outages and continue daily life activities. These findings offer valuable empirical insights into the interaction between human activities and infrastructure systems, such as power outages, during extreme weather events. They also enhance our empirical understanding of how infrastructure resilience influences community recovery. By identifying the critical thresholds for power outage functionality and duration that affect population activity recovery, this study furthers our understanding of how infrastructure performance intertwines with community functioning in extreme weather conditions. Hence, the findings can inform infrastructure operators, emergency managers, and public officials about the significance of resilient infrastructure in life activity recovery of communities when facing extreme weather hazards.

Network diffusion model reveals recovery multipliers and heterogeneous spatial effects in post-disaster community recovery

Community recovery from hazards occurs through various diffusion processes within social and spatial networks of communities. Existing knowledge regarding the diffusion of recovery in community socio-spatial networks, however, is rather limited. To bridge this gap, we created a network diffusion model to characterize the unfolding of population activity recovery in spatial networks of communities. In particular, this study aims to answer the research question “To what extent can the diffusion model capture the spatial patterns of recovery?” Using population activity recovery data derived from location-based information associated with 2017 Hurricane Harvey in the Houston area, we parameterized the threshold-based network diffusion model using the genetic algorithm and then simulated the recovery diffusion process. The results show that the spatial effects of recovery are rather heterogeneous across different areas; some spatial areas demonstrate a greater spatial effect in their recovery. Also, the results show that low-income and minority areas are community recovery multipliers; with faster recovery in these areas corresponding to accelerated recovery for the entire community. Hence, prioritizing these areas in resource allocation during recovery has the potential to accelerate could expedite the recovery of the entire community’s recovery process while promoting recovery equality and equity.

Spatial model for predictive recovery monitoring based on hazard, built environment, and population features and their spillover effects

The ability to proactively monitor the trajectory of post-disaster recovery is valuable for resource allocation prioritization. Existing knowledge, however, lacks models and insights for quantifying and proactively monitoring post-disaster community recovery. This study examines models that could predict population activity recovery at the scale of the census block group (CBG). Population activity recovery is measured by using location-based human mobility visitation patterns to essential points-of-interest (POIs) in the context of the 2017 Hurricane Harvey in Harris County, Texas. The study examined the association between the population activity recovery duration and 32 features split into four categories: (1) physical vulnerability and access, (2) hazard exposure and impact, (3) proactive actions and (4) population features. Several types of spatial regression models were evaluated to determine their ability to capture this relationship. The Spatial Durbin Model was identified as the best fit for assessing direct, spillover, and total effects of features on population activity recovery at the CBG level. The results show the extent of physical vulnerability, measured by road network density, prolongs the duration of population activity recovery by a combination of direct and spillover effects. Also, the extent of access to essential facilities, measured based on the number of POIs, shortens the duration of population activity recovery. Correspondingly, the extent of flooding is not a significant feature in explaining the population recovery duration in CBGs. The results show that better preparedness, measured by extent of POIs visitations prior to hurricane landing, is associated with faster population activity recovery. In terms of population attributes, the total number of people, the percentage of minorities, and the percentage of Black and Asian subpopulations are significant features in the model for predicting the duration of population activity recovery. The study outcome offers data-driven insights for understanding the determinants of population activity recovery and provides a new model tool for predictive recovery monitoring based on evaluating the direct, spillover, and total effects of features. These findings can identify areas with slower or more rapid recovery to inform emergency managers and public officials in ensuring equitable resource allocation prioritization.

Simulation modeling of operation and coordination of agencies involved in post-disaster response and recovery

A disaster's response and recovery phases can be characterized by the breadth of activities, complex interrelationships of multiple involved agencies, and uncertain outcomes. Proper performance and collaboration of responsible agencies can mitigate disaster-induced losses. Past studies have not holistically investigated the role of responsible agencies’ operation and cooperation in post-disaster community recovery. This study proposes a hybrid framework that facilitates the probabilistic modeling of responsible agencies' post-disaster performance and coordination. An Agent-based Modeling (ABM) sub-model simulates the operations and interactions of responsible agencies. A System Dynamics (SD) sub-model characterizes multiple dynamical phenomena of interest: (1) provision of essentials to people, (2) infectious disease outbreak, and (3) crime outbreak and prevention. The proposed model simulates the progress of multiple Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) and evaluates their broader impact on the community. It is applied to a virtual community where several agencies must operate and collaborate to respond to an earthquake. Results underline the importance of inter-organization collaboration in the timely restoration of infrastructure systems and households. The proposed modeling framework can examine the effectiveness of various coordination schemes in disaster response and recovery, which can be used to develop plans to better respond to probable future disasters.

Working with Disaster-Affected Communities to Envision Healthier Futures: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Post-Disaster Recovery Planning.

Disasters are becoming increasingly common and devastating, requiring extensive reconstruction and recovery efforts. At the same time, the level of available resources and the need to rebuild can present opportunities for more resilient land use and infrastructure, and to build healthier, more equitable and sustainable communities. However, disaster-affected individuals may experience trauma and mental health impacts that impede their ability to engage in long-range recovery planning. It is essential to consider and address community trauma when engaging with disaster-affected communities and in developing plans for recovery. Planners and engineers from outside the community (including public, private and non-profit practitioners) are often brought in to support long-term recovery. Most of these practitioners (particularly those focused on longer-range recovery) have no training in how disasters can affect mental health or what this could mean for their interactions with individuals or communities. In order to acknowledge and address disaster trauma in community recovery and redevelopment, we propose a trauma-informed approach which aims to provide practitioners supporting post-disaster community recovery planning guidance, in order to: avoid the causation of harm by re-traumatizing communities; better understand community needs; make sense of observed behaviors and avoid potential roadblocks; avoid becoming traumatized themselves; and facilitate community healing.

Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada.

The 2016 Alberta wildfire, the largest insured natural disaster in Canada, led to a mass evacuation of residents of Fort McMurray, a small city in northern Alberta. The wildfire resulted in significant damages to housing and community infrastructure. The entire community was displaced for several weeks. Post-disaster, community members experienced individual and collective trauma, and other negative mental health impacts in response to the significant losses and grief they endured. Spirituality has been found to be a major protective factor in facilitating resiliency and recovery following the experience of disaster. Nonetheless, little focus has been directed toward how spirituality can strengthen and empower community capacity and growth during post-disaster recovery. Our study explored various meanings and concerns, along with tools and strategies that helped to nurture spiritual resilience and well-being among residents of Fort McMurray following the Alberta wildfire. Data were collected through interviews and focus group discussions with community influencers working to support long-term recovery efforts in the city. Participants identified a number of spiritual resources such as a strong sense of belonging, a shared positive outlook, faith and hope, compassion, and sense of gratitude, which contributed to increased resilience and positive health and well-being and helped them to support families and communities in the post disaster recovery period. Our findings indicate that spiritual values and beliefs can play a significant role in building resilience and promoting individual and communal healing and recovery post-disaster. These findings have important implications for post-disaster recovery strategies, as they highlight the need to ensure supports for interventions and initiatives that strengthen a collective sense of identity and social cohesion, informed by communal norms and beliefs, including programs and resources which support opportunities for reflexivity to foster shared healing and ongoing recovery processes.

Possible roles of People's Organization for post-disaster community recovery: A case study on recovery process after Philippine Typhoon Yolanda

This study shows significant roles of the grassroots People's Organizations (POs), formed by fisherfolks and farmers in the recovery after 2013 Typhoon Yolanda in Medellin and Bantayan Island in the Philippines. We found that varied roles of POs post-disasters are important for receiving and assisting project implementations, encouraging independence among members, and providing solutions to community issues, i.e. poverty and development. Moreover, POs provide vitality and inspiration to members. POs can be associations for the “next society” since it is free from constraint and united personally. POs can become more open and inclusive through POs' activities and interactions with NGOs.

Rebuilding Relocated Tribal Communities Better via Culture: Livelihood and Social Resilience for Disaster Risk Reduction

Building back better is the goal of post-disaster recovery. However, most of the extant literature focuses on hardware reconstruction and there is a lack of attention on the social aspect of recovery. This study aims to understand the role of culture in the recovery process of relocating indigenous communities through tourism livelihood. A Tsou indigenous settlement, relocated after the 2009 Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan, was used as a case study. Field data were collected through participant observations in tourism and community activities as well as semi-structured interviews over a period of 15 months. The study found that appealing to a relocated tribe’s culture, not their land, as their community’s foundation could reduce conflicts within the community and increase social resilience. Indigenous culture-based tourism could serve as an important source of livelihood for such tribes, supporting long-term development. This study highlights community-based cultural tourism as a post-disaster livelihood revival approach which is beneficial for a resilient recovery. Culture could reduce disaster risk through a transformation to a livelihood source and further become the base of community resilience. Instead of promoting detached culture preservation, this study argues that a livelihood-relevant culturally innovative transformation could create a win–win situation for both post-disaster community recovery and culture inheritance.

Prioritizing psychosocial services for children, youth and families postdisaster

PurposeThis article explores the community recovery and resilience element of “building back better” (BBB) through the perspectives and experiences of community influencers who provided psychosocial supports after the 2013 floods in southern Alberta, Canada.Design/methodology/approachThe Alberta Resilient Communities (ARC) project adopted a community-based research methodology to examine the lived realities of children, youth, families and their communities postflood. In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with 37 community influencer participants representing a range of organizations including not-for-profit agencies, community organizations, social service agencies and government departments.FindingsThe findings were drawn from the interviews held with community influencers in flood-affected communities. Major themes include disaster response challenges, insufficient funding for long-term disaster recovery, community partnerships and collaborations and building and strengthening social capital.Practical implicationsFindings demonstrate the need to build better psychosocial services, supports and resources in the long term to support community recovery and resilience postdisaster for children, youth and families to “build back better” on a psychosocial level.Social implicationsLocal social service agencies play a key role in the capacity of children, youth and families to “build back better” postdisaster. These organizations need to be resourced and prepared to respond to psychosocial needs in the long term in order to successfully contribute to postdisaster recovery.Originality/valueThe findings illustrate that adopting a psychosocial framework for disaster recovery can better inform social service disaster response and long-term recovery plans consistent with the BBB framework. Implications for social service agencies and policymakers interested in fostering postdisaster community recovery and resilience, particularly with children and youth, are presented.

Social capital and post-disaster community recovery processes after the 921 earthquake

Social capital and post-disaster community recovery processes after the 921 earthquake

Integrating Historic Preservation into Post-Disaster Recovery: The Role of the Main Street Program

Historic preservation is an important part of community resilience to natural hazards. In the aftermath of disasters, however, preservationists sometimes struggle to find the resources or support necessary to repair or protect historic resources. Disaster-affected communities in the United States have used the Main Street Program to help guide their recovery efforts, with positive outcomes for historic preservation. In this paper we use an explanatory case study research design to analyze three communities that have used Main Street during post-disaster recovery: Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Waterbury, Vermont; and Lyons, Colorado. We find that the Main Street Program has helped preservationists overcome common barriers to recovery by (1) bringing together diverse stakeholders with an interest in historic resources; (2) leveraging the strengths of pre-disaster networks and relationships; and (3) linking the restoration and protection of historic resources to economic recovery and revitalization. The use of the Main Street Program is an example of a successful collaborative governance approach to disaster recovery, which has important implications for heritage professionals and urban planners globally. While limited in their breadth and areas of focus, these cases show that the Main Street Program has been a unique tool for post-disaster community recovery.

Embedded entrepreneurs and post-disaster community recovery

Entrepreneurs can and do play an important role in promoting community recovery after disasters. Research, however, has not adequately explored the behavior and practices of post-disaster entrepreneurs or acknowledged the role of entrepreneurs in overall disaster recovery. We attempt to fill this gap by highlighting the behavior and practices of entrepreneurs who contribute to recovery, specifically, we argue that post-disaster entrepreneurs: (a) supply needed resources to disaster victims, (b) leverage social capital to navigate extreme uncertainty, (c) are motivated by high place attachment, and (d) exhibit both commercial and social goals. They are able to successfully perform these functions because of the embedded nature of entrepreneurship. We offer evidence based on fieldwork conducted in New Orleans, Louisiana, following Hurricane Katrina and following the tornadoes in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Joplin, Missouri.

Developing indicators to measure post-disaster community recovery in the United States.

Disaster recovery is a key capability of federal, state, and local government. To support this capability effectively practitioners need useful and validated metrics to document how well a community is recovering from a particular disaster. This study developed and categorised recovery indicators according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)'s Recovery Support Functions and Recovery Mission Area Core Capabilities through a literature review, an evaluation of the pre-disaster recovery plans for 87 coastal jurisdictions, and a case study of two communities (New Hanover County, North Carolina, and the City of Hoboken, New Jersey). Metrics identified in the literature were validated through the recovery plan review and the case study. The research team also identified sources for both baseline and current status data. Based on these findings, a user-friendly checklist for practitioners was established, which will be piloted with practice partners during a future disaster recovery initiative.

School Interventions After the Joplin Tornado

To qualitatively describe interventions by schools to meet children's needs after the May 2011 Joplin, Missouri tornado. Qualitative exploratory study conducted six months after the tornado. Key informant interviews with school staff (teachers, psychologists, guidance counselor, nurse, principal), public health official, and physicians. After the tornado, school staff immediately worked to contact every enrolled child to provide assistance and coordinate recovery services. Despite severe damage to half of the city's schools, the decision was made to reopen schools at the earliest possible time to provide a safe, reassuring environment and additional services. An expanded summer school session emphasized child safety and emotional wellbeing. The 2011-2012 school year began on time, less than three months after the disaster, using temporary facilities. Displaced children were bused to their usual schools regardless of their new temporary residence locations. In just-in-time training sessions, teachers developed strategies to support students and staff experiencing anxiety or depression. Certified counselors conducted school-based, small-group counseling for students. Selective referrals were made to community mental health providers for children with greatest needs. Evidence from Joplin adds to a small body of empirical experience demonstrating the important contribution of schools to postdisaster community recovery. Despite timely and proactive services, many families and children struggled after the tornado. Improvements in the effectiveness of postdisaster interventions at schools will follow from future scientific evidence on optimal approaches.

The capacity for self-governance and post-disaster resiliency

A community’s capacity for self-governance depends on the social coordination capacity of community organizations and associations, the ability of community members to effectively access both bonding and bridging social capital, the ability of community members to leverage their shared histories and perspectives, and the stability of social networks within the community. Both Elinor Ostrom and Jane Jacobs have explored how a community’s capacity for self-governance affects its ability to solve complex problems (for example, dealing with crime, the provision of public goods, or problems of neighborhood blight). The greater a community’s capacity for self-governance the better able it is to deal with these complex challenges. This paper examines how pre-disaster systems of self-governance aid in post-disaster community recovery. Our analysis focuses on the Mary Queen of Vietnam (MQVN) community and Gentilly, examines the effectiveness of their systems of self-governance prior to Hurricane Katrina and explores the role these systems played in promoting community recovery after the disaster.

Digging deeper: participation and non-participation in post-disaster community recovery

Stakeholder participation is widely acknowledged as being critical to post-disaster recovery, but little is known about the dynamics and decision processes that lead to this participation or to non-participation. More in-depth knowledge of these dynamics can lead to more targeted and timely intervention by development practitioners managing the process. This paper presents key conclusions of a study which analyzed stakeholder participation using qualitative data inquiry methods in the recovery of three coastal villages of Nagapattinam (India) after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The first key conclusion is that participation and non-participation are a complex function of stakeholder presence and stakeholder impact. Secondly, stakeholder power, legitimacy, trust, and urgency for action affect the forms and continuation of participation and non-participation. And lastly, time constraints and rapidly changing recovery conditions change stakeholder legitimacy, power, trust, and urgency over time, thus reaffirming some imbalances while also creating new opportunities to redress others.

Post-disaster Community Recovery in Heterogeneous, Loosely Connected Communities

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on 29 August 2005, leaving a great deal of destruction, pain, and uncertainty in its wake. Post-disaster community rebound is a collective action problem where every individual's decision to rebuild is impacted by the likelihood that others in the community will rebuild. The literature on post-disaster recovery suggests that homogenous, tight-knit communities will have an advantage over more diverse, less-connected communities in solving this collective action problem and bringing about community rebound and redevelopment. Consequently, these studies have tended to underappreciate the capacity of loosely knit, heterogeneous communities to overcome the challenges associated with community recovery after a disaster. This article hopes to fill this gap in the literature by examining how loosely knit, heterogeneous communities can facilitate post-disaster community recovery and redevelopment. To examine this, we highlight the importance of community-based organizations and focus on the recovery efforts of Broadmoor after Hurricane Katrina.

Social Capital as Collective Narratives and Post-Disaster Community Recovery

This paper examines how social capital aids in post-disaster community recovery and redevelopment. While previous studies on social capital and post-disaster recovery have tended to focus on social networks as a source of necessary assistance, the primary focus of this study is on how social capital in the form of collective narratives affects post-disaster recovery. We argue that collective narratives can shape the recovery strategies that individuals adopt. To illustrate this we examine the post-Katrina recovery efforts in St. Bernard Parish, an area devastated by flooding and significant environmental damage. In particular, we focus on the shared narrative that dominated qualitative interview data collected in St. Bernard, namely, its shared identity as a close-knit, family-oriented community comprised of hard workers. This narrative led community members to adopt a strategy that emphasized self-reliance.

The Entrepreneur's Role in Post-Disaster Community Recovery: Implications for Post-Disaster Recovery Policy

Using information gleaned from interviews conducted in the Greater New Orleans region over the last three years, this Policy Primer examines the role that economic entrepreneurs play in post-disaster community recovery and describes how social entrepreneurs promote community resilience.The authors conclude by proposing policy recommendations that would eliminate artificial barriers to economic and social entrepreneurship and improve the recovery process. In particular, the authors recommend that policy makers relax unnecessary regulations, as in a post-disaster context, such regulations can become not only unwieldy, but also can impede recovery. They also urge policy makers to permit entrepreneurs to step in as soon as possible, because entrepreneurs are in the best position to assess local conditions and needs in the rapidly changing, post-disaster environment.