What recent catastrophes can teach us about community resilience

Summer heat and hurricane season have arrived, introducing new risks like the ones American communities are still rebuilding from, including the Pacific Palisades wildfires and Hurricane Helene in Appalachia. For these communities and others like them (our thoughts are with the people of Central Texas), several days of disaster usually means years of arduous reconstruction. Every business and household wants to return to normal as soon as possible, despite the challenges associated with cleanup, infrastructure restoration and rebuilding.

When subjected to catastrophes, communities usually rebuild in place. Businesses have employees who have built lives, sometimes across generations, in their hometowns and cities. Social ties endure even if buildings and infrastructure don’t. In many cases, a business’s customers or suppliers are members of the same community, or within the same region.

There is a general desire to “build back better,” especially when hazards have produced repeated losses. There's also a rush to restore normalcy. So how can communities ensure they rebuild to become stronger?

Although resilience often looks like luck or good character, the ability to prevent or reduce losses from any type of risk entails careful planning and diligent efforts. For businesses that think of themselves as community anchors, post-disaster recovery is an ideal time to demonstrate this commitment.

You can’t rush rebuilding

The pace of returning to normal or better usually disappoints. It often takes months to clean up (what may be toxic) debris, which is often spread by wind or water, expanding the scope of remediation work. Recovery may also entail rebuilding infrastructure like water, sewer, power and communication systems.

Meanwhile, government funds come in slower than hoped, and construction permits – especially for rebuilding differently (better) – may require special approval from already overloaded local authorities having jurisdiction. Lengthy business interruptions, including diminished support of workers and families, spotlight the value of developing a roadmap for resilience ahead of time.

Business resilience pays myriad dividends

For businesses, resilience does two things: It directly preserves long-term financial performance and ensures continued contributions to local communities. A resilient business can continue to pay employees, patronize local companies and support emergency response.

A Florida medical device maker offers a stellar example. During Hurricane Ian in 2022, one of the strongest hurricanes to strike the state and country, the company never ceased production, missed an order or filed insurance claims. Moreover, employees and their loved ones without power at home were invited to the global headquarters campus in Naples to take showers, charge electronic devices or simply enjoy a reprieve from the heat.

The company established an employee assistance hotline and mobilized more than 600 team members to help muck out damaged homes and remove debris, coordinate the delivery of supplies and resources such as food, gasoline and generators, and volunteer for a variety of community efforts. The manufacturer also provided space for the National Guard and FEMA.

That's community resilience.

Anything can happen at any time

A natural disaster is hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime event at most. Sometimes, however, lightning strikes twice. “Hundred-year” floods can actually occur two years in a row. On the West Coast, vegetation grows back quickly, presenting a perennial wildfire risk in dry zones.

Thus, rebuilding in place shouldn’t mean replicating the same vulnerabilities as before. Rebuilding is instead an opportunity to emerge stronger. Having a sound plan for resilience, regardless of implementation phase, is a huge head start on recovery.

Community resilience in practice

The noble notion of an overall resilient community that includes homes, businesses, support services and infrastructure is based on addressing the interdependencies within the entire community that have been shown to exist in repeated disasters. Businesses, though interdependent, can contribute to their community by taking the lead in the process and planning in the following areas:

• Risk assessment – What hazards have we encountered in the past and what can we expect going forward? Which are likely to pose the greatest challenge?
• Risk-conscious land use and building codes – How can the land best be used, and buildings be built, to minimize the impact of the known hazards? Are there areas that shouldn’t be rebuilt? Seek use of land that puts both the value on that property, and that of adjacent properties, at lower risk.
• Strengthening infrastructure – Communities need to prioritize schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, dams, water supply, sewer, sanitation, power, cellular, internet service, etc. Identify who in your community is responsible for maintaining these services and talk to them about key vulnerabilities. There are new infrastructure and even emerging resilience bonds available to fund improvements.
• Community engagement – Residents and leaders must fully understand risks to start thinking about investing in managing them together. Using success stories from other communities and businesses is a great way to make progress.
• Effective emergency response – Actions during disruption are critical in both the short and long term. The time to get to know your community is before a disaster. First responders such as police, fire and EMTs are vital, but those first to the scene of catastrophe are your employees and neighbors.
• Recovery and rebuilding – In this phase, it’s important to revisit standards, codes and priorities. Changing building codes is the best solution, but it is a long process with many stakeholders. Seek established standards for resilience (which every build code allows as better than ‘meeting the intent’). The goal should be to resume functionality in a reasonable period of time.

Each component could be a subcommittee in a community planning effort.

Start now

As a business leader, you can get started on individual and community resilience right away. Revisit your capital plan with an eye toward addressing costliest vulnerabilities first. And engage your workforce in a resilience mindset. Create or update emergency plans for your facility, then practice using them. The cost is manageable (emergency response plan guidance is freely available and generally requires minimal labor cost, especially compared with a loss). Contact your chamber of commerce and city council to begin a community-wide collaboration on resilience improvement.

Rebuilding is hard work, and rebuilding with resilience is smart work, with important implications for your community for generations to come. Make the effort if you can.

This article originally appeared in Forbes.

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