TEDx Talks - We Prepare to Survive Disasters But Not to Cope With What Comes After | Kate Brady | TEDxUNSW Salon
The speaker, with extensive experience in disaster recovery, critiques the current approach to disaster preparedness, which focuses primarily on surviving the initial 72 hours. Using the example of a woman named Jane, who meticulously prepares for a disaster, the speaker highlights that while immediate preparedness is crucial, it is only a small part of the larger picture. Disasters have long-term impacts on health, housing, education, and community stability, which are often overlooked in current preparedness plans. The speaker emphasizes the need for systemic preparedness that includes health, education, and housing systems to support communities in the long-term recovery process. They argue for a shift in focus from just surviving the immediate aftermath to planning for the consequences that follow, such as housing disruptions, health complications, and educational interruptions. The speaker calls for a change in how disaster preparedness is approached, suggesting that plans should include strategies for dealing with these long-term impacts to truly support affected communities.
Key Points:
- Disaster preparedness should include long-term recovery plans, not just immediate survival strategies.
- Current preparedness focuses on surviving the first 72 hours, neglecting long-term impacts on health, housing, and education.
- Systems like health, education, and housing need to be prepared for long-term disruptions caused by disasters.
- Preparedness plans should address specific consequences like housing and health disruptions, not just the hazards themselves.
- There is a need for systemic change in disaster preparedness to include long-term recovery strategies.
Details:
1. 🎒 Essentials of Disaster Preparedness
- A comprehensive disaster preparedness kit should include a torch, water, food, important documents like ID and insurance, items for kids, medication, and a first aid kit.
- The kit is designed to sustain an individual or a family for the first 72 hours following a disaster.
- Being prepared involves having these essentials readily available in a backpack to ensure safety and readiness in case of an emergency.
2. 🔍 Insights from Disaster Recovery
- The speaker has led the Australian Red Cross disaster recovery program for over ten years, providing a wealth of practical experience.
- Research focuses on identifying helpful and unhelpful elements in post-disaster scenarios, emphasizing the importance of a long-term recovery perspective.
- A key insight is that disaster preparedness should be informed by the challenges observed in long-term recovery processes.
- The program's strategies are shaped by both immediate needs post-disaster and sustained support over extended periods.
- Examples of effective recovery practices include community engagement and tailored support programs.
3. 👩👧 Jane and Ollie's Preparedness Story
3.1. Jane's Preparedness Actions
3.2. Effectiveness of Preparedness
4. ⚠️ Beyond Initial Preparedness: Understanding Disasters
- Jane has successfully followed all instructions for initial disaster preparedness, ensuring survival for the first 72 hours, highlighting the importance of initial preparedness but indicating it's just a small part of a larger puzzle.
- Disasters are defined not by the presence of hazards like fires or floods, but by the interaction of these hazards with populations, causing harm.
- An example is the Sherman landslide in Alaska (1964), which was enormous but unnoticed due to the lack of human presence, contrasting with the smaller but catastrophic 1966 landslide in Abafan, Wales, which killed 144 people, including 116 children, due to its impact on a populated area.
- Disasters result from hazards intersecting with human populations, emphasizing the need for understanding potential impacts rather than just initial preparedness.
5. 🔄 Long-Term Impacts of Disasters
- Disasters have been increasing dramatically over the last couple of decades, providing better information on their impacts.
- Disasters affect every aspect of individuals' lives, including health, relationships, education, livelihoods, homes, and communities.
- Evidence shows that recovery from disasters takes years and decades, not weeks or months.
- Current planning often only considers immediate recovery, typically days or weeks, which is insufficient.
- Preparedness information mostly targets individuals and households, but large-scale, long-term disruptions require systemic preparedness.
- Systems like health, education, housing, and legal need to be ready for prolonged recovery efforts, not just the initial crisis period.
6. 🔧 Preparing Systems for Prolonged Disruptions
- Disaster preparedness can be radically improved without additional machines or equipment by clearly defining the consequences we're preparing for.
- Replace general disaster terms like 'fire' or 'flood' with specific consequence-based scenarios such as 'high levels of housing disruption', 'health complications', 'increased family violence', or 'disruption to education'.
- Completing these sentences helps in creating meaningful and targeted disaster preparedness plans.
7. 🏠 Challenges in Post-Disaster Recovery for Jane and Ollie
7.1. Housing Challenges
7.2. Education and Community Recovery
7.3. Health and Emotional Impact
8. 🔄 Building a Recovery Workforce
- Currently, there is no standardized career path for disaster recovery roles, contrasting with well-defined pathways for professions like firefighters, which underscores a need for strategic workforce planning.
- Recovery workers are typically hired on short-term contracts after disasters occur, reflecting a reactive approach rather than a proactive strategy in workforce development.
- Training for recovery roles is not embedded within the educational programs of professions that are crucial in disaster recovery, such as healthcare, legal, construction, education, and social services.
- Despite the critical involvement of these sectors in disaster recovery, their professional training programs generally lack comprehensive modules on the long-term impacts of disasters.
- To enhance the effectiveness of disaster recovery efforts, integrating disaster recovery training into the curricula of these professions could be a strategic initiative.
- Learning from international models that have established successful recovery workforce pathways could provide valuable insights and frameworks for implementation.