Managing for Long-Term Community Recovery in the Aftermath of Disaster

Managing for Long-Term Community Recovery in the Aftermath of Disaster by Daniel J. Alesch, Lucy A. Arendt, and James N. Holly is an insightful new book designed to help local officials and community leaders better understand the issues and challenges in restoring the social, political, and economic elements that make a community viable in the long term after a disaster has occurred.

The book is the result of years of cumulative research in dozens of communities that have experienced extreme events to determine what it takes for a community to truly recover. An extreme event can result from a natural hazard event; an intentional or mindless act of destruction; a large accident; a widespread virulent epidemic; or even an economic crisis brought on by the closure or relocation of a principal employer in the community. Years after experiencing an extreme event, many communities still struggle to recover.

“[Recovery] is not ‘putting things back the way they were before’”, the authors explain. “Recovery…means establishing viability within the post-event environment, viability for individuals and households, businesses, local government, and the community as a whole. It means adapting to new realities.”

Going beyond cleanup efforts and restoring basic services, this book focuses on long-term recovery from disasters, addressing important issues such as local economies, housing and rebuilding, social and psychological consequences, and other consequences of extreme events. The authors looked at factors that impact the recovery process from the nature and extent of the consequences to the characteristics of the affected community.

Managing for Long-Term Community Recovery in the Aftermath of Disaster is an invaluable guide for local officials and community leaders. While state and federal agencies and private organizations are helpful in providing disaster relief and restoring services, but responsibility for long term community recovery falls to local officials and the communities they serve.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. After the Disaster: The Challenge of Recovery

Part 1. Communities, Disasters, and Recovery: Setting the Stage

Chapter 2. What Makes for a Community Disaster?
Chapter 3. The Cascading Consequences of Extreme Events
Chapter 4. Recovery: Beyond Restoring the Built Environment
Chapter 5. Forces That Complicate Community Recovery

Part 2. Post-Disaster Experiences: What Happened in Other Communities

Chapter 6. Often the Local Economy Unravels
Chapter 7. Post-Event Demographic Changes
Chapter 8. Housing and Rebuilding Issues
Chapter 9. Social and Psychological Consequences

Part 3. Post-Disaster Experiences: What Happened to Local Governments

Chapter 10. Local Government Workload and Employee Stress
Chapter 11. A Diminished Revenue Base
Chapter 12. Skyrocketing Expenses, Cash Shortages, and Closing the Revenue Gap

Part 4. What We Learned About Long-Term Recovery

Chapter 13. Responding to the Emergency
Chapter 14. Going Beyond Emergency Response
Chapter 15. Local Government Operating Systems Must Be Operational
Chapter 16. Identifying What Has to be Done Next
Chapter 17. Basic Strategies for Rebuilding the Local Economy
Chapter 18. Creating and Implementing a Strategic Plan for Long-Term Recovery
Chapter 19. Pitfalls in Planning for Community Recovery
Chapter 20. Before the Next Disaster: Hazard Mitigation.

Endnotes