Recovery, Role of Governments in

The Job of Recovery

Each recovery process is as unique as the geography of the impacted area, the economic character of the region, and the composition of people whose lives are affected. First responders are not concerned with the incomes of those they rescue, how to create a vision for rebuilding while clearing mountain-sized debris, or how to reconstitute livelihoods when providing emergency sheltering. This is the job of recovery.

One of the first and most welcome tasks that government and charitable organizations undertake after a disaster is to implement recovery funding and support programs. Clearly, funding is necessary to pay for large-scale, unanticipated expenses, and other programs are required to help with the vast array of post-disaster needs; however, even when government programs are well-planned and executed, there are always crucial gaps in the recovery process. Some of these programs have evolved over years and include arcane rules to deal with special circumstances, to avoid misuse or abuse of funding, or to serve some political purpose. Others are created after a specific disaster, and are targeted to some perceived, unique need. In any of these circumstances, programs rarely meet all of the recovery needs; therefore, governments must always be ready to step back and subjectively evaluate the effectiveness of their recovery programs. If these programs are not working well, government must retool the process to ensure that core recovery goals are achieved.

Using the lessons learned from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the broad-based recovery process implemented in Florida after four major hurricanes swept the state in 2004, the federal government was well-positioned to play a key role in the post-Katrina recovery process. In fact, in the years between September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, the federal government identified the need for a more holistic approach to recovery. During revisions to the National Response Plan (NRP), a new framework for disaster recovery was created, known as the National Response Framework, Long-Term Community Recovery Emergency Support Function #14, which provides a mechanism for integrating local, state, and federal recovery processes to try to unify recovery efforts.

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