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Book Cover
Book
Author Arendt, Lucy A.

Title Long-term community recovery from natural disasters / Lucy A. Arendt and Daniel J. Alesch
Published Boca Raton, FL CRC Press, 2015

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 WATERFT  363.348 Are/Ltc  AVAILABLE
 MELB  363.348 Are/Ltc  DUE 07-04-24
Description xix, 292 pages ; 24 cm
Contents Machine generated contents note: Purpose and Approach -- A Basic Consideration -- Specification -- Two Vignettes: The Makings of a Disaster -- Homestead and Hurricane Andrew -- New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina -- Social Definitions, Experiential Congruence, and Initial Consequences -- Collective Experiential Congruence -- Initial Adverse Impacts -- Metrics and Extreme Natural Hazard Events -- What, Then, Is an Extreme Natural Hazard Event? -- From Extreme Natural Hazard Event to Community Disaster -- Disasters as Complex, Disruptive Social Events -- When Communities Cannot Perform One or More Critical Functions -- Disasters and Damage to Complex, Self-Organizing, Open Systems -- Meaning of "Complex," "Open," and "Self-Organizing" -- Community Systems Change through Time -- Self-Organization and Individual Choices: What, Where, and When -- And Then, a Great Disturbance -- Initial and Cascading Consequences of Extreme Natural Hazard Events --
Contents note continued: What Determines the Nature and Extent of Initial Consequences? -- The Event Itself -- Exposure -- Vulnerability -- Nature of Cascading Consequences -- Increasing Complexity and Cascading Consequences -- Categorizing Consequences -- Ripple Effects: Consequences for Other Communities -- Ripple Reverberations -- Real Problems for Real People in Real Places -- The Local Economy May Unravel -- Business Activity and Cascading Consequences -- Businesses That Drive the Local Economy -- Smaller Businesses and Not-for-Profit Organizations That Serve the Local Community -- Prerequisites for Doing Business and for Postevent Recovery -- Conditions under Which Economic Unraveling Is More Likely -- Housing and Rebuilding Issues -- What Happens? -- Housing Costs and Land Values -- Housing Availability -- Postevent Demographic Changes -- Estimating Postevent Population Changes: Important But Difficult -- Dimensions of Demographic Change --
Contents note continued: Initial Population Displacement and Repopulation -- Changes in Demographic Characteristics -- Proportional Change in Population -- Social and Psychological Consequences -- Expectations -- Individual Mental Health -- Community Social Healing -- Workload and Employee Stress -- The Building Department as an Example -- Initial Inspections -- Contractor Licensing -- Permits and Construction Inspections -- Requests for Exemptions, Waivers, and Variances -- Unmet Expectations and New Roles -- Conflicting Demands between Home and Work -- Consequences of Employee Stress -- Diminished Revenue Base -- Revenue Base as a Combination of Sources -- Ad Valorem Property Tax -- (Usually) Centrally Collected and (Usually) Locally Shared Taxes -- Tourist Taxes -- User Fees and Utility Charges -- Expenses and Shortages -- Expenses Rise Rapidly -- Meeting the Immediate Need for Cash -- Reserves, Insurance, and Loans -- Institutional Arrangements within States --
Contents note continued: Funding for Long-Term Recovery -- Federal Contributions and Grants -- Technical Assistance -- Rebuilding the Tax Base -- What Constitutes Community Recovery? -- A Few Important Distinctions -- Recovery Occurs When All Key Functions Are Being Performed Adequately -- Community Recovery Processes -- Recovery Processes: Like Preevent Community Change, But Accelerated and More Tumultuous -- Dynamics of Self-Organizing Adaptation to New Circumstances -- Beware! Some Advice Can Be Misleading -- Will It, Can It, Ever Be the Same? -- Variables That Impede or Facilitate Recovery -- Perceptions -- Community Disaster Resistance and the Nature and Scale of Initial Consequences -- Preevent Community Status and Trajectory -- Resiliency and Recovery -- Available Resources -- Political Culture, Political Realities, and Political Practicality -- Creativity and Resourcefulness of Local Leaders -- Who's in Charge? -- First Things First -- Prompt and Effective Response --
Contents note continued: Restoring Government Services and Repairing Public Facilities and Infrastructure -- Providing Short-Term Assistance to Individuals and Families -- Helping Residents Start to Recover: Essential Goods and Services Must Be Available -- Ensuring Temporary Shelter -- Assessing the Nature and Extent of the Consequences -- Ensure That Local Government Is Up to the Demands That Will Be Placed on It -- Fortifying Accounting and Finance Systems -- Reducing Nonessential and Downright Irritating Bureaucracy -- Ensuring Adequate Staffing -- Learn about Assistance Programs -- Creating a High-Level, Problem-Solving Advisory Team -- Devise a Local Recovery Strategy -- Ensure Two-Way Communication -- Shaping the Postevent Community Trajectory: Rebuilding or Restoring the Economy -- Chickens and Eggs -- Local Support for Small Businesses -- Alternative Strategies Used to Rebuild the Local Economy -- Seven Strategies -- Do What We've Always Done --
Contents note continued: Recreate What Used to Be -- A Great Leap Forward -- Transformation -- Working with the Market -- Building on What They Have -- Do Not Do Much Other Than Restore Infrastructure and Housing -- So, What Works Best? -- Pitfalls to Avoid -- Confusing Municipal Recovery with Community Recovery -- Assuming Everyone Has the Same Recovery Goals -- Clearly, the Rebuilding Issue Is a Complicated One -- Losing Track of the Big Picture -- Assuming Things Will Work Out as Anticipated: Unanticipated Events and Events beyond Your Control -- Assuming It Will Work Here Because It Worked There -- Forgetting about Path Dependency -- Prerequisites for Taking Precautions against Risks Associated with Extreme Natural Hazard Events -- Prerequisite 1: Awareness of the Risk and an Appropriate Risk Perception -- Prerequisite 2: Conviction That Something Can Be Done to Protect One's Self against the Likely Consequences of the Event --
Contents note continued: Prerequisite 3: Belief That It Is in Our Best Interest to Act Now -- Prerequisite 4: An Acceptable Solution Must Exist -- Prerequisite 5: The Individual or Organization Must Have the Capacity to Act -- Agenda Space and Contextual Dynamics -- Resource Availability -- Political Culture and Context -- Other Concerns: Moral Hazard, Learned Helplessness or Dependency, and Political Opportunism -- Moral Hazard -- Political Opportunism and Ideological Schism -- Goals and Means for Mitigating the Risks Associated with Extreme Natural Hazard Events -- Reducing the Likelihood of the Damaging Event -- Reducing Community Exposure to the Potentially Damaging Event -- Reducing the Vulnerability of That Which Is Exposed -- Harden in Place -- Employ "Soft Mitigation" Tactics -- Things to Do Now, before the Next Disaster -- Develop and Maintain a Risk Inventory and Risk Assessment -- Make Some Plans -- Develop a Shared Vision --
Contents note continued: Get Necessary State Government Policies in Place -- Assisting with Local Government Financial Plights -- Insurance -- Permits and Licensing -- Infrastructure Inspections
Summary Today, governmental efforts at long-term community recovery from a natural disaster consist primarily of rebuilding the physical artifact of the community. This entails reestablishing vital community services and infrastructure and creating housing to replace that which has been lost. While restoring the built environment of a disaster area is essential, alone it is not sufficient to achieve complete recovery. Long-Term Community Recovery from Natural Disasters presents what the authors have learned over two decades from more than two dozen community disasters in and outside the United States. Based on their experiences, they provide a set of practical, cost-effective steps for both reducing the consequences of extreme natural hazard events on communities and for facilitating community recovery. To achieve long-term recovery, it is essential that we understand how communities develop and/or decay in the absence of an extreme natural hazard event. Then, by recognizing how these events disrupt "normal" development and change, we can determine which parts of the community have to become reestablished or made more functional so that the community can achieve long-term viability. The authors explain how this appreciation of community dynamics and the consequences of extreme natural hazard events enables us to identify those critical points for policy intervention at appropriate levels of government. The combined practical and philosophical insight presented in this book will be valuable not only to policy makers but to scholars as well.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Subject Disaster relief.
Disasters -- Social aspects.
Community development.
Community life.
Author Alesch, Daniel J.
LC no. 2014039021
ISBN 9781466593022 (hardcover) (alkaline paper)