What will it take to be prepared?

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The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation By Stephen Flynn Random House 2007; 272pages

The essential message of Stephen Flynn's The Edge of Disaster. Rebuilding a Resilient Nation is that the United States has become a "brittle superpower? Lack of investment in our infrastructure and public services, Flynn says, has made the country increasingly vulnerable to both man-made and natural disasters. This vulnerability is compounded by the interconnectedness of the modern economy, where a loss in capacity in one area of the country can send shockwaves through the rest of the nation. This was amply demonstrated by the power outage that occurred in August 2003 when untrimmed trees in Ohio became entangled in three high voltage power lines and set off a chain of events that led to power plants being shut down across the northeastern United States and southern Canada, ultimately costing the economy an estimated $6 billion to $10 billion and significantly disrupting approximately 50 million lives. (1) It is not difficult to imagine similar catastrophes arising from challenges to our air travel system, water, or port systems.

This situation of malign neglect extends to many types of infrastructure: in a 2005 report, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the United States (including all levels of government) an average grade of "D" across a variety of infrastructure types including wastewater, transit, schools, roads, and parks/As Flynn states, "the narrative reads like a survey that might have been conducted on eve of the collapse of the Roman Empire. Roads, dams, water purification facilities, the power grid, canal locks, roads, and waste water management systems have gone from very bad to worse in the past four years." (3)

The nation's vulnerability is not limited to just infrastructure. Flynn asserts that local public safety and health functions have become dangerously under-funded to the point where they would collapse under the weight of a major disaster. Many cities today have fewer patrol officers on the street than in 2001 and those officers are ill equipped to operate in a disaster environment. (4) Public health systems are similarly frayed. For instance, hospitals in more than 40 percent of states do not have sufficient backup supplies of medical equipment to meet surge capacity needs during a pandemic flu or other major infectious disease outbreaks. (5)

Addressing these problems of deterioration and inadequate preparedness would improve the United States' ability to withstand natural disasters by creating more survivable infrastructure, putting reasonable back-ups in place, and improving the ability to respond to such disasters. It would also better protect the United States against acts of terrorism. The goal of the modern terrorist attack is to create as much damage and disruption as possible. To the extent that our infrastructure is better able to withstand an attack and that critical functions can be re-routed to back-up systems, attacks against the domestic United States becomes less attractive to terrorists.

Flynn recognizes that a major effort to address the problems he raises will not be easy Decades of taxpayer rebellion have stripped governments

of their ability to maintain infrastructure and public services at the appropriate level. Meeting the problem will require strong leadership and cooperation between all levels of government and between the public and private sectors to build a resilient nation that won't fall apart in the face of adversity. At the same time, Flynn is a great advocate of local action to begin building resiliency While researching his book, Flynn found that the message of resiliency resonates with ordinary citizens and that they are willing and able partners. Citizens can form the foundation of a resilient nation by preparing themselves for a disaster. Organizations like the Red Cross provide a wealth of data on how individual citizens can prepare themselves and local government can help by being candid about the risks the community faces, providing information and direction on how to prepare that is customized to local issues, and marshalling the appropriate incentives to encourage individual citizen preparedness.

Local action also includes working with the private sector to improve resiliency Flynn points out that 85 percent of the nation's critical infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector, so any attempt to improve resiliency must engage private interests. Flynn places primary responsibility with the federal government in this arena. It should streamline the process by which it shares terrorism and disaster-related information with major corporations and should include the private sector in disaster preparedness planning and exercises. Local government, though, can also engage the private sector. Flynn describes how Eden Prairie, Minnesota, has launched a Partnership for Emergency Readiness program that developed contacts, built trust, and coordinated planning with the business community. Eden Prairie's program includes an inventory of assets that businesses would be willing to make available to assist during an emergency, creating a secure Web site to share information before, during, and after an event, and encouraging all companies with more than 250 employees to develop business continuity plans.

Finally, local government can take direct initiative. The City of Seattle, Washington, has been a leader in creating disaster resistance in the community. Seattle has launched a conscious program to strengthen critical infrastructure and educate the public on how to prepare for the types of dangers it is likely to face. Interested parties can learn more about Seattle's efforts at www.seattle.gov/projectimpact.

Flynn also advocates federal leadership on resiliency. The federal government can help coordinate resources between regions, work with other nations to build mutual resiliency, and better integrate federal programs with local efforts. Local action can help here too by pressuring federal officials to adopt pro-resiliency policies.

The Edge of Disaster presents a powerful call to action for all American citizens. To this point, the American public as a whole has not been asked to make a significant contribution to the struggle against terrorism. Building preparedness and resiliency provides an opportunity for collective action to make the country less vulnerable to terrorist attacks and, therefore, a less tempting target. It also creates more effective resistance to inevitable future natural disasters and strengthens the economy by mitigating losses in productivity in the wake of an event and providing improved capacity during times of normalcy.

Local officials have an indispensable role in making a more resilient community through actions such as:

* Working with citizens and businesses to create awareness of the need for resiliency, making them aware of how they can contribute to resiliency, and actively including appropriate constituencies in local preparedness planning and training.

* Coordinating with other governments to develop a joint plan for responding to regional disasters and more effectively sharing resources.

* Advocating with state and local officials to address regional weaknesses.

* Taking direct action to strengthen infrastructure that is under local control.

Flynn readily admits that building resiliency will not be easy It will require transformational leadership and faith that change for the better is not only possible but inevitable. Inspiring others to share and act on this vision requires clear understanding of and candor about the status quo so that a credible path from the present to the future can be articulated. Flynn's book illuminates our current predicament and helps chart a course toward a resilient nation.

Notes

(1.) U.S. Canada Power System Outage Task Force, Final Report on the August 14, 2003, Blackout in the United States and Canada: Causes and Recommendations, April 2004; and ICF Consulting, "The Economic Cost of the Blackout: An Issue Paper on the Northeastern Blackout, August 14, 2003," http://www.solarstorms.org! IFCBlackout2003.pdf.

(2.) American Society for Civil Engineers, "Report Card for America's Infrastructure," 2005.

(3.) Based on Flynn's analysis of ASCE's 2005 report as well as iterations of the same report from previous years.

(4.) Bureau of Justice Statistics, Local Police Departments 2003, Department of Justice, NCJ 210118, May 2006, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ pub/pdf/lpd03.pdf.

(5.) Trust for America's Health, "Ready or Not? Protecting the Public's Health from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism," 2005, p. 3, http://healthyamericans.org/reports/bioterror05.

SHAYNE C. KAVANAGH is a senior manager in the GFOA's Research and Consulting Center in Chicago.