This post is written by Frank Vram Zerunyan, J.D. LL.D. (hc), Professor of the Practice of Governance at the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy. He is an elected local policymaker serving as a Mayor and Councilmember in Rolling Hills Estates, California.

  • The problem: Climate-induced disasters are frequent and real.

  • Why it matters: They cause devastation in our communities, endangering property and life.

  • The solution: While we cannot prevent them for the most part, we can mitigate them by being prepared through a well-thought-out disaster mitigation plan.

Natural disasters are a way of life for Floridians, Californians, and residents of southern states on the Gulf of Mexico. It is not a case of if but when hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, landslides, and related calamities will strike to devastate our states, counties, and cities.

Climate scientists continue to warn about the severity and frequency of these events based on the warming of the climate, loss of the ozone layer, and sea-level rise in places like Miami, Florida. Some of my colleagues at the University of Southern California study various impacts of these disasters. Unfortunately, there are many. Through experience, we know the threat of the calamities and the devastation they cause is real.

While scientists and politicians debate who is responsible for climate change, as a local policymaker and public administrator, I am elected to deal with the real risk of the devastation and the aftermath that threaten our communities, destroying life and property. Therefore, I need to ensure we have suitable governance measures through planning matters.

Perfect preparation prevents problems

I recently interviewed United States Army four-star General Stan McChrystal about his latest book, “Risk.” General McCrystal describes risk as an understandable and straightforward mathematical equation; “threat times vulnerability equal risk (Threat X Vulnerability = Risk).”

“If there are no threats, our vulnerability doesn’t matter, and if we have no vulnerabilities, threats don’t matter.” In the case of natural disasters, both the threat and the vulnerabilities are real. While we are incapable of stopping the threat absolutely, we can mitigate our vulnerabilities. That is what a disaster management plan does.

The United States institutionalised disaster management as a discipline in 1979 with the creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Five federal agencies that dealt with many types of emergencies consolidated to form FEMA. From a single or narrowly defined category of hazards, FEMA moved toward an all-hazards approach that includes potential threats to life and property through environmental and technological risks as well as domestic and foreign attacks. Through experience, FEMA discovered that disaster management effectiveness requires collaborations with all levels of government (federal, state, and local), for-profit and non-profit sectors. This innovation allows disaster victims to be part of the solutions. For example, animal rescue organisations and animal owners respond to animal protection and evacuations during disasters.

A new model

Collaborative governance, both in theory and practice, has emerged as an innovative form of governance involving all sectors. Disaster management benefits from this innovation as it relies on sharing resources by various actors counting the strengths of each to bring efficiencies and effectiveness in delivering vital public services. This governance model is based on the premise that government is open, transparent, cooperative, and collaborative with citizens, private enterprises, public leaders, and administrators. In other words, the government has shifted from a service provider to a facilitative platform for a limitless number of actors coming together for the greater good.

Many states require local jurisdictions to name an emergency programme manager and an emergency plan or a disaster mitigation plan to be implemented during a disaster. The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000) is federal law, and requires state and local governments to prepare mitigation plans to document their mitigation planning process and identify hazards, potential losses, mitigation needs, goals, and strategies.

This type of planning supplements the local government’s comprehensive land-use planning and emergency management planning programmes. It also ensures continuing eligibility for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funding in a disaster. While we cannot prevent the disaster from happening, we can be prepared to address it. Therefore, since the 1940s, disaster management has focused on preparedness. Today, preparedness is one of four phases of an emergency management plan.

The four phases of emergency management

Current thinking defines four phases of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Mitigation in the context of natural disasters includes activities to reduce our vulnerabilities since we cannot reduce the threat - for example, building sea walls to counteract sea-level rise is one of the possible mitigation measures. The core of every disaster management plan is the preparation to handle the aftermath of the disaster. Preparedness includes plans to evacuate, rescue operations, stocking food, water, and other necessities.

The rule of thumb is to prepare for several days of self-sustainability until help arrives. Speaking from experience, every Californian is highly encouraged to pack an earthquake kit. Most have—our backyard stores our gear. The kit stores canned foods, flashlights, batteries, water, boots, blankets, food for our animals, medication, first aid kit, handheld radio, whistles, shovels, gloves, etc. Most items are non-perishable. We refresh things like batteries and medicine every two years or so. Our goal is to survive with our family and animals for at least a week without outside help.

The response provisions of the plan include actions taken to save lives or prevent further property damage. The response is the implementation of the emergency plan. For example, turning off natural gas valves, electricity in the case of exposed wires are some of the critical response initiatives. Finally, recovery is the process of returning to normalcy after the disaster. It may include financial assistance to help pay for repairs, insurance claims for those claims that may be insured, like earthquake insurance that some Californians purchase to rebuild. Most earthquake insurances have large deductibles; therefore, they cover only major disasters. By nature, recovery activities occur after the disaster.

Added extras

In addition to these four general phases of emergency management plans, communities with unique attributes draft emergency plans to address their specific needs. My city of Rolling Hills Estates, California, where I have served on the city council for approximately two decades, three times as mayor, is equestrian. The city houses close to 1,000 horses. Our emergency management plan has specific provisions to identify and use horse trailers belonging to private citizens.

Our plan heavily relies on horse owners to mobilize and help in the evacuation of horses. We are also located geographically on a peninsula where ingress and egress by land are limited to only a few main arterial roads. The main arterial roads cross two cities or jurisdictions on the peninsula. Therefore, it made sense for the two cities to combine efforts to draft their “Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan.”

Finally, the most critical factor for the disaster management plan is its simplicity, cohesion, and availability. Our city plan is on our city website. We communicate with our constituencies regularly via social media activities to promote the plan. We organise an emergency preparedness summit once a year with all participating agencies (police, fire, ambulance, etc.) to meet the public and remind them of the importance of this document in case of a disaster. Our education process and training of our city staff for the implementation of the plan never stops. While no disaster plan is ever perfect, operating without a plan is a disaster in the making.

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