Disaster Recovery
Experiences from Past Disasters Offer Insights for Effective Collaboration after Catastrophic Events Gao ID: GAO-09-811 July 31, 2009In the wake of the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes, coordination and collaboration challenges created obstacles during the government's response and recovery efforts. Because of the many stakeholders involved in recovery, including all levels of government, it is critical to build collaborative relationships. Building on GAO's September 2008 report which provided several key recovery practices from past catastrophic disasters, this report presents examples of how federal, state, and local governments have effectively collaborated in the past. GAO reviewed five catastrophic disasters--the Loma Prieta earthquake (California, 1989), Hurricane Andrew (Florida, 1992), the Northridge earthquake (California, 1994), the Kobe earthquake (Japan, 1995), and the Grand Forks/Red River flood (North Dakota and Minnesota, 1997)--to identify recovery lessons. GAO interviewed officials involved in the recovery from these disasters and experts on disaster recovery. GAO also reviewed relevant legislation, policies, and the disaster recovery literature.
Effective collaboration among stakeholders can play a key role in facilitating long-term recovery after a catastrophic event. Toward that end, GAO has identified four collaborative practices that may help communities rebuild from the Gulf Coast hurricanes as well as future catastrophic events: (1) Develop and communicate common goals to guide recovery. Defining common recovery goals can enhance collaboration by helping stakeholders overcome differences in missions and cultures. After the Grand Forks/Red River flood, federally-funded consultants convened various stakeholders to develop recovery goals and priorities for the city of Grand Forks. The city used these goals as a basis to create a detailed recovery action plan that helped it to implement its recovery goals. (2) Leverage resources to facilitate recovery. Collaborating groups bring different resources and capacities to the task at hand. After the Northridge earthquake, officials from the Federal Highway Administration and California's state transportation agency worked together to review highway rebuilding contracts, discuss changes, and then approve projects all in one location. This co-located, collaborative approach enabled the awarding of rebuilding contracts in 3 to 5 days--instead of the 26 to 40 weeks it could take using normal contracting procedures. This helped to restore damaged highways within a few months of the earthquake. (3) Use recovery plans to agree on roles and responsibilities. Organizations can collectively agree on who will do what by identifying roles and responsibilities in recovery plans developed either before or after a disaster takes place. Learning from its experiences from the Loma Prieta earthquake, San Francisco Bay Area officials created a plan that clearly identifies roles for all participants in order to facilitate regional recovery in the event of a future disaster. (4) Monitor, evaluate, and report on progress made toward recovery. After the 1995 earthquake, the city of Kobe and the surrounding region established processes to assess and report on recovery progress. These jurisdictions required periodic external reviews over 10 years on the progress made toward achieving recovery goals. As a result of one of these reviews, the city of Kobe gained insight into unintended consequences of how it relocated elderly earthquake victims, which subsequently led to a change in policy. Past recovery experiences--including practices that promote effective collaboration--offer potentially valuable lessons for future catastrophic events. FEMA has taken some steps to facilitate the sharing of such experiences among communities involved in disaster recovery. However, the agency can do more to build on and systematize the sharing of this information so that recovery lessons are better captured and disseminated for use in the future.
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Director: Team: Phone:GAO-09-811, Disaster Recovery: Experiences from Past Disasters Offer Insights for Effective Collaboration after Catastrophic Events
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Report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,
U.S. Senate:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
July 2009:
Disaster Recovery:
Experiences from Past Disasters Offer Insights for Effective
Collaboration after Catastrophic Events:
GAO-09-811:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-09-811, a report to the Committee on Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate.
Why GAO Did This Study:
In the wake of the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes, coordination and
collaboration challenges created obstacles during the government‘s
response and recovery efforts. Because of the many stakeholders
involved in recovery, including all levels of government, it is
critical to build collaborative relationships. Building on GAO‘s
September 2008 report which provided several key recovery practices
from past catastrophic disasters, this report presents examples of how
federal, state, and local governments have effectively collaborated in
the past.
GAO reviewed five catastrophic disasters”the Loma Prieta earthquake
(California, 1989), Hurricane Andrew (Florida, 1992), the Northridge
earthquake (California, 1994), the Kobe earthquake (Japan, 1995), and
the Grand Forks/Red River flood (North Dakota and Minnesota, 1997)”to
identify recovery lessons. GAO interviewed officials involved in the
recovery from these disasters and experts on disaster recovery. GAO
also reviewed relevant legislation, policies, and the disaster recovery
literature.
What GAO Found:
Effective collaboration among stakeholders can play a key role in
facilitating long-term recovery after a catastrophic event. Toward that
end, GAO has identified four collaborative practices that may help
communities rebuild from the Gulf Coast hurricanes as well as future
catastrophic events:
* Develop and communicate common goals to guide recovery. Defining
common recovery goals can enhance collaboration by helping stakeholders
overcome differences in missions and cultures. After the Grand
Forks/Red River flood, federally-funded consultants convened various
stakeholders to develop recovery goals and priorities for the city of
Grand Forks. The city used these goals as a basis to create a detailed
recovery action plan that helped it to implement its recovery goals.
* Leverage resources to facilitate recovery. Collaborating groups bring
different resources and capacities to the task at hand. After the
Northridge earthquake, officials from the Federal Highway
Administration and California‘s state transportation agency worked
together to review highway rebuilding contracts, discuss changes, and
then approve projects all in one location. This co-located,
collaborative approach enabled the awarding of rebuilding contracts in
3 to 5 days”instead of the 26 to 40 weeks it could take using normal
contracting procedures. This helped to restore damaged highways within
a few months of the earthquake.
* Use recovery plans to agree on roles and responsibilities.
Organizations can collectively agree on who will do what by identifying
roles and responsibilities in recovery plans developed either before or
after a disaster takes place. Learning from its experiences from the
Loma Prieta earthquake, San Francisco Bay Area officials created a plan
that clearly identifies roles for all participants in order to
facilitate regional recovery in the event of a future disaster.
* Monitor, evaluate, and report on progress made toward recovery. After
the 1995 earthquake, the city of Kobe and the surrounding region
established processes to assess and report on recovery progress. These
jurisdictions required periodic external reviews over 10 years on the
progress made toward achieving recovery goals. As a result of one of
these reviews, the city of Kobe gained insight into unintended
consequences of how it relocated elderly earthquake victims, which
subsequently led to a change in policy.
Past recovery experiences”including practices that promote effective
collaboration”offer potentially valuable lessons for future
catastrophic events. FEMA has taken some steps to facilitate the
sharing of such experiences among communities involved in disaster
recovery. However, the agency can do more to build on and systematize
the sharing of this information so that recovery lessons are better
captured and disseminated for use in the future.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to create a mechanism focused on
sharing information and lessons learned regarding disaster recovery,
including good collaborative practices. The Department of Homeland
Security concurred with our recommendation.
View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-811] or key
components. For more information, contact Stanley J. Czerwinski at
(202) 512-6808 or CzerwinskiS@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Background:
Effective Collaboration Has Facilitated Recovery in Past Disasters:
FEMA Has Taken Steps to Facilitate Collaboration among Stakeholders,
but Could Do More to Share Recovery Experiences:
Conclusions:
Recommendation for Executive Action:
Agency Comments:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: Loma Prieta Earthquake:
Disaster Impacts:
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
Appendix III: Hurricane Andrew:
Disaster Impacts:
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
Appendix IV: Northridge Earthquake:
Disaster Impacts:
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
Appendix V: Kobe Earthquake:
Disaster Impacts:
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
Appendix VI: Grand Forks/Red River Flood:
Disaster Impacts:
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security:
Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Figures:
Figure 1: Five Disasters Included in this Review (1989-1997):
Figure 2: Selected Facts about the Impact of the Loma Prieta
Earthquake:
Figure 3: Examples of Federal Assistance for Recovery from the Loma
Prieta Earthquake:
Figure 4: The Cypress Expressway Suffered Extensive Damage from the
1989 Earthquake (top); Oakland Moved the Expressway to Reconnect a
Neighborhood that Had Been Previously Divided (bottom):
Figure 5: Selected Facts about the Impact of Hurricane Andrew:
Figure 6: Examples of Federal Assistance for Recovery from Hurricane
Andrew:
Figure 7: Florida City's Water Distribution System Was Heavily Damaged:
Figure 8: Selected Facts about the Impact of the Northridge Earthquake:
Figure 9: Examples of Federal Assistance for Recovery from the
Northridge Earthquake:
Figure 10: The Gavin Canyon Underpass, Part of Southern California's
Interstate 5, Suffered Severe Damage but Was Restored Within a Few
Months:
Figure 11: Selected Facts about the Impact of the Kobe Earthquake:
Figure 12: Examples of National Government Assistance for Recovery from
the Kobe Earthquake:
Figure 13: Although the City of Kobe Restored the Port of Kobe by March
1997, the Port Never Fully Recovered:
Figure 14: Japan Restored Damaged Railways and Highways Approximately
20 Months after the Earthquake:
Figure 15: Selected Facts about the Impact of the 1997 Grand Forks/Red
River Flood:
Figure 16: Examples of Federal Assistance for Recovery from the Grand
Forks/Red River Flood:
Figure 17: After the Flood, Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East Grand
Forks, Minnesota, Took Steps to Address Their Cities' Lack of an
Adequate Flood-Control Infrastructure to Help Reduce Damage from Future
Flooding:
Abbreviations:
CalTrans: California Department of Transportation:
CDBG: Community Development Block Grant:
DHS: Department of Homeland Security:
EDA: Economic Development Administration:
ESF #14: Emergency Support Function #14:
FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency:
FHWA: Federal Highway Administration:
HUD: Department of Housing and Urban Development:
LLIS: Lessons Learned Information Sharing Web Site:
SBA: Small Business Administration:
[End of section]
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
July 31, 2009:
The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman:
Chairman:
The Honorable Susan M. Collins:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:
United States Senate:
Successful recovery from catastrophic disasters requires a partnership
involving federal, state, and local governments, as well as the
nonprofit and private sectors. An extensive group of participants--both
governmental and nongovernmental--were involved in recovery efforts
after the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes.[Footnote 1] Stakeholders included
virtually all cabinet-level federal agencies, several Gulf Coast
states, almost 600 local jurisdictions in Louisiana and Mississippi
including municipalities, parishes, school and utility districts, and
housing authorities as well as community groups and other
nongovernmental organizations. In the wake of the 2005 Gulf Coast
hurricanes, numerous reports have identified coordination and
collaboration as a key challenge during the government's response.
[Footnote 2] Our more recent work on Gulf Coast recovery efforts also
identified collaboration and coordination as an obstacle to the
recovery process as well.[Footnote 3]
Experiences from past disasters can provide valuable insights to help
communities overcome recovery challenges. At your request, last
September we identified several key practices from past catastrophic
disasters to help other communities when recovering from such
events.[Footnote 4] In that report, we described actions taken by state
and local governments during past disasters that facilitated recovery.
Specifically, localities (1) created a clear, implementable, and timely
recovery plan; (2) built state and local capacity for recovery; (3)
implemented strategies for business recovery; and (4) adopted a
comprehensive approach to combat fraud, waste, and abuse. Taken
together, these actions provide state and local officials with a set of
tools and approaches to consider when recovering from a catastrophic
event.
In this report, we focus on a key element involved in developing and
carrying out many of these practices--collaboration. Because of the
numerous partners and stakeholders involved after a disaster, effective
collaboration is critical in order to accomplish many recovery-related
tasks. As agreed with your offices, this report (1) presents examples
of how federal, state, and local governments have collaborated in the
past, identifying selected practices that may be helpful for
communities recovering from the Gulf Coast hurricanes as well as future
catastrophic events and (2) describes ways in which the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supports collaboration among
recovery stakeholders and the extent to which it facilitates the
sharing of lessons and experiences from past recovery efforts.
To conduct our review, we selected five catastrophic disasters: the
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in northern California; Hurricane Andrew,
which struck southern Florida in 1992; the 1994 Northridge earthquake
in Los Angeles, California; the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan; and the
1997 Grand Forks/Red River flood in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East
Grand Forks, Minnesota. We visited four of these communities to meet
with federal, state, and local officials and make observations of the
conditions today. Although we did not visit communities affected by the
Grand Forks/Red River flood, we were able to gather the necessary
information through telephone interviews with key officials involved in
the recovery as well as experts knowledgeable about the disaster.
Further, we also obtained and reviewed relevant legislation,
ordinances, policies, and program documents that describe steps taken
to facilitate long-term recovery following each of our selected
disasters.
We interviewed officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS),
FEMA, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) in the Department
of Commerce, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD),
nongovernmental organizations, as well as academic experts who were
knowledgeable about the recovery following each of our selected
disasters and issues relating to coordination. To understand how FEMA
supports collaboration among recovery stakeholders and the extent to
which it facilitates the sharing of experiences from past recovery
efforts, we interviewed FEMA staff and gained access to some of its
online systems. For more information on our scope and methodology see
appendix I. For detailed descriptions of the impact of the five
disasters we reviewed as well as selected recovery strategies taken in
the wake of each of these events, see appendix II to VI.
We conducted this performance audit from June 2007 through July 2009 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Background:
State and local governments generally have the primary responsibility
for disaster recovery while the federal government provides support
when requested. Because there are many parties involved in this
process--including all levels of government as well as victims and
businesses within the affected communities--effective collaboration is
a key factor for successful recovery. In addition, collaboration among
recovery stakeholders can continue for an extended period of time.
Short-term recovery is immediate and an extension of the response phase
in which basic services are restored.[Footnote 5] Long-term recovery
can include some of these short-term activities, but typically
continues them for a number of months or years, depending on the
severity and extent of the damage sustained.[Footnote 6] It also
involves restoration of both individuals and the community, including
the redevelopment of damaged areas.
To provide recovery assistance after a disaster, many federal agencies
and program components are called upon to administer disaster
supplemental programs and funding, re-program funds, or expedite normal
procedures. For example, grants, loans, loan guarantees, temporary
housing, and counseling are among the forms of disaster assistance
available from federal agencies including FEMA; the departments of
Agriculture, Commerce, HUD, Treasury, and Transportation; and the Small
Business Administration (SBA).
Some of these federal programs provide financial resources to state and
local governments following disasters, while others provide technical
assistance. For example, FEMA's Public Assistance grant program
provides funding to repair or replace public infrastructure; HUD's
Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program provides formula
grants for long-term recovery needs such as rehabilitating and building
housing, EDA's economic adjustment grant responds to the short-and long-
term effects of severe economic dislocation events on communities; and
DHS's Flood Insurance Program enables individuals to purchase insurance
against losses from physical damage from floods. Other agencies
directly carry out rebuilding or recovery projects such as the
reconstruction of levees by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the
repair of federal roads by the Federal Highway Administration. Federal
recovery assistance is also provided directly to disaster victims. For
example, FEMA's Individual Households Program provides housing,
financial assistance, and other direct services while the Internal
Revenue Service provides information about how to claim casualty loss
deductions.[Footnote 7]
The federal government also provides technical assistance for
communities to engage in long-term community recovery activities,
through the Emergency Support Function #14 (ESF #14), as part of the
National Response Framework.[Footnote 8] ESF #14 coordinates federal
and state long-term community recovery support and helps communities
plan for and identify the necessary resources for recovery. Developed
shortly before the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes, ESF #14 was not in place
at the time of the five past disasters we studied. ESF #14 and FEMA's
Long-Term Community Recovery Branch in its Disaster Assistance
Directorate, which supports this annex, provide assistance in
coordinating federal, state, and local recovery efforts and developing
community recovery plans. The Long-Term Community Recovery Branch also
works with other federal agencies to help identify program gaps and the
potential need for flexibilities and new authorities during the
recovery process.
Our previous work defines collaboration broadly as any joint activity
that is intended to provide more public value than could be produced
when the organizations act alone. Because of the large number and wide
variety of stakeholders involved in the recovery from a catastrophic
event, collaboration is a critical element of this process. We have
previously reported that agencies can enhance and sustain their
collaborative efforts by engaging in eight practices: defining and
articulating a common outcome; establishing mutually reinforcing or
joint strategies; identifying and addressing needs by leveraging
resources; agreeing on roles and responsibilities; establishing
compatible policies, procedures, and other means to operate across
agency boundaries; developing mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and
report on results; reinforcing agency accountability for collaborative
efforts through agency plans and reports; and reinforcing individual
accountability for collaborative efforts through performance management
systems.[Footnote 9]
Effective Collaboration Has Facilitated Recovery in Past Disasters:
Effective collaboration among recovery stakeholders can play a key role
in facilitating disaster recovery. Because the recovery process
requires partnerships among representatives from all levels of
government as well as nongovernmental groups, effective collaboration
is critical. We have previously identified a number of practices that
can enhance and sustain collaborative efforts, which would help to
facilitate disaster recovery.[Footnote 10] We found four of these
collaborative practices in the past disasters we reviewed.
Specifically, governments (1) developed and communicated common
recovery goals; (2) leveraged resources to facilitate recovery; (3)
used recovery plans to agree on roles and responsibilities; and (4)
evaluated and reported on progress made toward recovery.
Develop and Communicate Common Recovery Goals:
To overcome significant differences in missions, cultures, and
established ways of doing business, collaborating groups must have a
clear and compelling rationale for working together. We have previously
reported that the compelling rationale for collaboration can be imposed
externally such as through legislation or can come from the
understanding that there are benefits to working together. In either
case, collaborative efforts require staff working across organizational
lines to define and articulate a common outcome or purpose they are
seeking to achieve that is consistent with respective organizational
goals and mission.[Footnote 11] In our September 2008 report on
disaster recovery, we discussed the importance of recovery plans and
how clearly identified goals in such plans can provide direction and
specific objectives for communities to focus on.[Footnote 12] Building
on this, we identify two approaches of how stakeholders involved in the
recovery process following the Kobe earthquake in Japan and the Grand
Forks/Red River flood in Grand Forks, North Dakota, worked collectively
to define and articulate common outcomes.
A month after the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the national Japanese
government formed a "reconstruction committee" to organize recovery
efforts. The Japanese government created this body through national
legislation that required the participation of numerous national,
prefectural,[Footnote 13] and local agencies as well as nongovernmental
organizations, such as the Kobe Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The
Prime Minister personally managed the committee, and the Chief Cabinet
Secretary and Minister of the National Land Agency served as deputy
managers. The reconstruction committee also included representation
from other high-ranking government officials--including cabinet
ministers, the governor of Hyogo prefecture, and the mayor of the city
of Kobe--as well as participants from academia. According to an
official who participated in this committee, the involvement of these
prominent leaders not only encouraged stakeholders involved in the
reconstruction committee to collaborate in order to come to agreement
on recovery goals, it brought national attention to recovery issues.
Working together through this committee, these officials and
stakeholders collaborated to create a national plan of action for
recovery. This plan included broad proposals that provided insight for
how the national government would assist in recovery, such as
recommending that a long-term recovery plan be developed quickly as
well as making housing reconstruction, debris removal, port
reconstruction, and job creation a national priority. It also included
more specific details to guide Hyogo prefecture and the city of Kobe's
recovery, such as promptly demolishing unsound structures and using
excess concrete from the earthquake rubble for construction and repairs
in the port area.
In addition to providing an action plan, this committee also reviewed
Hyogo prefecture's and the city of Kobe's recovery plans to help
localities align their recovery proposals with the funding priorities
of the national government. According to an evaluation of the recovery
conducted by the city as well as outside recovery experts, the specific
feedback provided by the reconstruction committee, along with the
recovery goals previously clarified by the national government helped
local officials to come to consensus on their recovery goals. Within 6
months of the earthquake, Hyogo prefecture and the city of Kobe
completed recovery plans, which included specific recovery goals for
their regions, such as rebuilding damaged housing units in 3 years and
completing physical recovery in 10 years. According to this evaluation,
the delineation of these goals at a local level played a critical role
in helping to coordinate the wide range of participants involved in
implementing recovery projects.
After the Grand Forks/Red River flood in 1997, federal, state, and
local officials worked together to define common goals when planning
for the recovery of Grand Forks, North Dakota. Technical consultants,
funded by a HUD grant, brought together federal and city officials as
well as members of the community to discuss Grand Forks's rebuilding
priorities. According to a local official, because the city had no
experience with the process of developing common goals for the city
prior to the flood, this external facilitation helped the Grand Forks
community and city officials come to agreement on a set of common
recovery goals. The recovery goals resulting from these meetings were
included in a comprehensive recovery plan for Grand Forks. A subsequent
city evaluation found that the process of specifying goals within the
recovery plan--which identified five broad goals and a number of
supporting objectives and tasks to achieve those goals--helped the city
to conceive and formulate projects in coordination with the city
council and representatives from state and local governments.
Leverage Resources to Facilitate Recovery:
We have previously reported that to effectively collaborate requires
the identification of the human and financial resources needed to
initiate or sustain collaborative effort.[Footnote 14] In doing so,
collaborating groups can bring different levels of resources and
capacities to the task at hand. In our September 2008 report, we
discussed the importance of helping state and local governments take
advantage of all available disaster assistance by enhancing their
financial and technical capacity when needed.[Footnote 15] Following
the Kobe and Northridge earthquakes, we found examples of how
governments leveraged the knowledge and expertise of diverse
stakeholders to produce effective collaboration and, in turn,
facilitate the recovery process.
In the wake of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the Japanese government
created a formal organization through which human capital resources
from all levels of the government were leveraged to plan for and
implement recovery strategies. A committee comprised of high ranking
officials--including members of the Japanese House of Representatives
and leaders of affected jurisdictions and their staff--developed
intergovernmental recovery strategies. In addition to those high-
ranking officials, the committee also included working-level staff from
national ministries to provide expertise for developing specific
details to be included in the recovery plan. For example, staff from
the Ministry of Transportation brought expertise on infrastructure
replacement while those from the Kobe Chamber of Commerce and Industry
contributed knowledge regarding economic recovery matters. According to
a Japanese official involved in the recovery, this committee combined
the political know-how from the top-level officials and
interdisciplinary expertise from line-level bureaucrats to propose many
recovery proposals which laid a foundation for the national
government's approach to recovery. The Japanese government also
leveraged human capital expertise through this committee to facilitate
the implementation of recovery strategies. Upon the approval of certain
recovery policies, working staff associated with the committee returned
to their respective organizations to guide their home departments on
how best to implement the strategies. A Japanese official involved in
the committee said that this collaboration helped to ensure that
disparate ministries understood and properly implemented the recovery
strategies they helped to develop.
After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the city of Los Angeles,
California, also leveraged human capital resources to accelerate the
rebuilding of its freeway system. Using the technical expertise of
staff from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the California
Department of Transportation (CalTrans), the city of Los Angeles
developed an expedited contracting process. To review construction
proposals more efficiently, FHWA and CalTrans staff collaborated to
review documents, discuss needed changes, and then approve projects
together in one location. According to CalTrans officials, state and
federal offices normally conduct separate reviews. This joint process
helped to expedite the approval of projects while still meeting
oversight requirements for both levels of government. Under standard
contracting procedures, the contracting process could take 26 to 40
weeks to complete. However, this collaborative, co-located process
enabled state highway officials to advertise and award construction
contracts in just 3 to 5 days. By leveraging the knowledge and
resources of state and federal staff in this way, Los Angeles
successfully restored its highways within a few months after the
Northridge earthquake.
In addition to leveraging human capital expertise, Los Angeles also
found ways to take advantage of resources from different federal
programs to facilitate housing recovery for certain disaster victims.
The city faced challenges in helping owners of housing units that had
suffered extensive damage in the earthquake. When Los Angeles learned
that some of these dwellings were not eligible for SBA disaster
assistance because they had negative cash flows, the city identified
resources available from a HUD program to help these property owners.
Using these funds, the city allocated $322 million to an Earthquake
Supplemental Disaster Relief fund which assisted property owners who
were declined by SBA. To obtain information on owners who might benefit
from this program, the city entered into a cooperative agreement with
SBA to obtain direct referrals of individuals who were denied loans so
that the city could inform them of this additional source of
assistance. A city evaluation of this program found that Los Angeles
received over 5,000 referrals, which represented more than 22,000
housing units.
Use Recovery Plans to Identify Roles and Responsibilities:
Collaborating organizations can work together to define and agree on
their respective roles and responsibilities. In doing so, they can
collectively agree on who will do what, organize joint and individual
efforts, and facilitate decision making.[Footnote 16] One way to
delineate roles and responsibilities for disasters is through planning.
For the emergency response phase, the National Response Framework sets
out the roles and responsibilities of key partners at the local,
tribal, state, and federal levels. Responsibilities for recovery
stakeholders are detailed in ESF #14, the Long-Term Recovery Annex. The
annex mostly addresses the responsibilities of federal agencies
involved in recovery.
Because state and local governments play a lead role in disaster
recovery, it is also important for their roles and responsibilities to
be clearly delineated. After past disasters, this information has been
delineated through long-term community recovery plans. Communities can
develop such plans either before or after a disaster occurs. Post-
disaster recovery plans typically include detailed projects and
approaches to rebuild a community based on the damage and impacts of
the specific disasters. Some communities have supplemented post-
disaster plans by conducting planning efforts prior to a disaster.
Pre-disaster planning does not involve actually developing rebuilding
programs in advance of a disaster because the patterns of damage from
natural disasters are impossible to predict with sufficient accuracy to
support detailed pre-planning. However, these plans can be helpful in
other ways that foster collaboration, specifically in defining the
roles and responsibilities of recovery stakeholders prior to a
disaster. We have previously reported how effective recovery plans
identify specific roles and responsibilities among various
stakeholders.[Footnote 17] While these plans are often developed after
a disaster takes place, we have identified some instances where this
information was clarified beforehand.
Los Angeles's Recovery and Reconstruction Plan clearly identified the
roles and responsibilities of key officials involved in recovery. In
the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake in southern California, the
city revised the plan for the purposes of recovery from that event.
Specifically, the plan identified which city departments have
responsibility for implementing pre-determined activities before and
after a disaster in several functional categories, including
residential, commercial, industrial rehabilitation, and economic
recovery. An evaluation of the plan funded by the National Science
Foundation found that the assignment of general responsibilities to the
departments was useful because it helped the various components of city
government to understand their post-disaster roles and
responsibilities. Further, the process of developing the plan also
improved collaboration among stakeholders. Specifically,
representatives from many departments--including public safety,
planning, public works, building, and community redevelopment--met
several times to develop and revise the plan.
A good plan is not simply a paper-driven exercise, but rather the
result of a dynamic and inclusive process wherein key stakeholders are
consulted and involved in the identification of priorities and the
formation of strategies. Collaboration among recovery stakeholders was
further enhanced through long-term recovery planning exercises held by
the city of Los Angeles. In these exercises, police and fire officials
engaged in role playing exercises in which they assumed the
responsibilities of recovery officials. For example, a public safety
officer played the role of a building inspector responsible for issuing
building permits after an earthquake. A city official at the time of
the earthquake told us that the process of developing the plan and
conducting exercises was an important part of developing relationships
among stakeholders which facilitated collaboration among city officials
after the Northridge earthquake. According to a federally-funded
evaluation of this plan, the contacts established during the planning
process facilitated the recovery after the Northridge earthquake.
Another city official stated a positive outcome of the planning effort
was that participants knew of others who worked on similar issues with
whom they can initiate conversations. In addition, the process of
preparing and testing the plan educated city staff on their post-
disaster roles and responsibilities.
More recently, two other communities have taken action to develop
recovery plans prior to a disaster that identify roles and
responsibilities for recovery. In the San Francisco Bay Area, state and
local governments used pre-disaster planning to reinforce a regional
approach to recovery as well as to assign regional roles and
responsibilities for recovery. Learning from past experiences with
natural disasters in California including the Loma Prieta earthquake,
the Bay Area recognized the value of planning for recovery in
anticipation of future disasters. Toward that end, Bay Area officials
initiated a regional disaster response planning effort in 2004
culminating with the Regional Emergency Coordination Plan in March
2008, which included a subsidiary plan focused specifically on
recovery.[Footnote 18]
Specifically for recovery, the San Francisco Bay Area Regional
Emergency Coordination Plan summarizes in a table organizations
involved at each level of government and the primary role of each.
[Footnote 19] For example, the table specifies that local governments
will resume government functions and request state and federal
assistance, that state agencies will implement state-funded recovery
programs, and that regional infrastructure owners will initiate
planning for and implementation of permanent repairs. We have
previously reported on the challenges that state and local
jurisdictions sometimes face with understanding the extent to which the
federal government will pay for disaster-related costs.[Footnote 20]
Pre-disaster recovery plans that clearly identify the roles and
responsibilities of various stakeholders may prove useful in clarifying
the specific types of costs federal programs are likely to cover as
well as some of the requirements of these programs before a disaster
strikes.
Partly as a result of experiences following Hurricane Andrew, Florida's
Palm Beach County developed the Palm Beach Countywide Post-Disaster
Redevelopment Plan for guiding decision making and action during the
disaster period as well as detailing actions that can be taken before a
disaster strikes to speed the recovery process.[Footnote 21] Palm Beach
County delineates roles and responsibilities for recovery by creating
working groups who will be responsible for implementing different
sections of the plan, including infrastructure, economic development,
and government operations. Each working group is assigned several
issues to cover along with a chairperson to spearhead those activities
for the county. Additionally, city departments and agencies are
represented in each of these working groups.
As an outgrowth of this plan, a Business and Industry program was
created that formally integrated business interests into the recovery
process. Additionally, the program also created a private-public
partnership comprising local, state, regional, and national businesses
as well as governmental and nongovernmental organizations. According to
a Palm Beach County official, partners in this program are fully
engaged in the development and implementation of recovery initiatives.
These collaboration efforts have resulted in improved relationships
among the governmental, nongovernmental, and business entities involved
in the program.
Post-disaster recovery plans can also provide a vehicle to designate
roles and responsibilities for recovery, among other things. We have
previously reported that well-crafted post-disaster recovery plans can
clarify roles and responsibilities and help jurisdictions make progress
with recovery.[Footnote 22] For example, the city of Grand Forks's
recovery plan developed in the wake of the 1997 Grand Forks/Red River
flood clearly identified which personnel--drawn from city, state, and
federal agencies--would be needed to carry out each task. Specifically,
the plan called for collaboration of staff from the city's urban
development and engineering/building inspection departments, FEMA, and
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create an inventory of
substantially damaged buildings in the downtown area. By clarifying the
roles and responsibilities of those who would be involved in
accomplishing specific tasks, the plan provided detailed information to
facilitate its implementation.
Monitor, Evaluate, and Report Progress Made toward Recovery:
Organizations engaged in collaborative efforts need to create the means
to monitor and evaluate their efforts to enable them to identify areas
for improvement. Reporting on these activities can help decision
makers, clients, and stakeholders obtain feedback for improving both
policy and operational effectiveness.[Footnote 23] We have previously
reported that effective recovery plans identify clear goals that can
provide governments with a basis for subsequent evaluations of the
recovery progress.[Footnote 24] As a next step, we identify how local
jurisdictions impacted by the Kobe earthquake established a process
through which government officials, community members, and recovery
experts worked together to assess the recovery progress and recommend
improvements.
Hyogo prefecture and the city of Kobe established a system of periodic
recovery assessments in the wake of the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan.
Both governments designed a two-phase approach to evaluating the
progress they have made toward recovery, the first taking place about 5
years after the earthquake and the second about 10 years afterward.
This design allowed for both a short-and long-term assessment of the
recovery. Although the Hyogo and Kobe governments funded these
evaluations, neither prefecture nor city employees were directly
involved in conducting these assessments; rather, they used external
staff to perform the reviews. Hyogo prefecture invited domestic and
international disaster recovery experts to serve on its evaluation
panels, while the city of Kobe staffed its reviews with members of
local community groups.
These evaluations focused on the goals established in the recovery
plans approved by the national government 6 months after the
earthquake. They enabled policy makers to measure the progress made by
various stakeholders in achieving recovery goals, and identify needed
changes to existing policies, and learned lessons for future disasters.
The panels examined six broad recovery topics--including health,
industry, employment, and urban development--which resulted in many
recommendations to improve recovery from the Kobe earthquake.
For example, as a result of its 10-year evaluation Hyogo prefecture
gained insight into the unintended consequences of how it relocated
elderly earthquake victims, which subsequently led to a change in
policy. After the earthquake, the prefecture gave priority to the
relocation of elderly victims and grouped them together in special care
residences located outside the city. While this policy ensured that
this vulnerable population received housing quickly, it also had the
unintended effect of isolating the relocated seniors, who were removed
from their communities. In fact, the verification committee attributed
this housing arrangement as leading to untimely deaths for some
seniors. After learning of this finding, the prefecture built new types
of residential housing that offer comprehensive lifestyle support for
seniors. In addition, for future disasters the prefecture plans to
develop a system to track displaced populations as they move from
temporary to permanent housing to help maintain better contact with
victims.
FEMA Has Taken Steps to Facilitate Collaboration among Stakeholders,
but Could Do More to Share Recovery Experiences:
Recovery experiences from past catastrophes--including good
collaboration practices--can offer lessons for such events in the
future. FEMA has taken some actions to encourage recovery stakeholders
to collaborate by sharing lessons and experiences related to recovery.
However, in contrast to other phases of a disaster for which FEMA has a
specific mechanism dedicated to sharing such information, this is not
the case with the recovery phase.
FEMA has taken steps to support collaboration through planning and
sharing recovery lessons. FEMA has assisted state and local governments
in developing post-disaster recovery plans in various ways, which in
turn can help facilitate collaboration among stakeholders. First, FEMA,
along with other federal agencies such as HUD and EDA, provided
technical assistance for post-disaster recovery plans for several of
the disasters we reviewed. Second, FEMA developed guidance for
conducting the long-term recovery planning process. More specifically,
the agency created a Long-Term Community Recovery Self Help Guide that
offers communities step-by-step guidance for implementing a recovery
program and planning process. Third, FEMA created the Long-Term
Recovery Assessment Tool to help communities analyze the impacts of a
disaster while taking into consideration the local government's
capacity to assist in promoting its own long-term recovery. The
assessment tool helps federal and other decision makers identity the
type and level of supplemental long-term community recovery assistance
that may be needed for full recovery from a disaster. The tool also
includes processes and procedures for assessing long-term recovery
needs, community evaluation protocols, standard planning templates,
staffing strategies, and timetables for various levels of effort.
FEMA has also taken actions to encourage collaboration among state and
local officials to share experiences and expertise related to disaster
recovery. For example, FEMA's Long-Term Community Recovery Branch,
working through ESF #14, hosted a teleconference linking officials in
Florida, Mississippi, Colorado, and Iowa with experience recovering
from previous disasters to provide information to officials in Texas
recovering from Hurricane Ike. In this way, officials with direct
experience in the recovery process were able to share good practices
related to recovery planning, disaster funds administration, and
coordinating regional efforts with the participants from Texas.
According to FEMA officials, this collaboration helped the Texas
officials identify recovery projects and develop a community recovery
plan. In addition, FEMA is considering ways to further facilitate the
sharing of lessons learned for disaster recovery, including creating a
peer-to-peer mentoring program where experienced local officials can
provide technical assistance, advice, and support to communities
impacted by the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. However, these officials
told us that this idea is still at an early stage and additional
specifics are not yet available.
FEMA's information sharing Web sites do not include a focus on
recovery. FEMA has systematic approaches for sharing lessons regarding
three of the four phases of a disaster--preparedness, response, and
mitigation; however, as of June 2009, the agency does not have an
information sharing system focused on recovery. Officials involved in
the preparedness and response phases of a disaster can share lessons
through FEMA's Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS) Web site.
LLIS is a national online network of lessons learned and best practices
for the emergency preparedness, response, and homeland security
communities. Online since April 2004, LLIS provides users access to
over 12,000 documents including state and local plans, after-action
reports, best practices, and lessons learned that are culled from real-
world experiences and exercises. Because the Web site includes some
sensitive information, its registration process is limited to domestic
users with "a need to know."[Footnote 25] Information on LLIS is
organized through a number of "featured topics," such as critical
infrastructure, exercise planning and program management, and wild-land
fires. Materials are also organized by numerous "disciplines" that have
an emergency management focus such as emergency communications, mass
care and human services, mortuary services, as well as search and
rescue.
While LLIS does contain materials relating to recovery, the issue is
neither a featured topic nor a discipline, making it challenging to
access recovery-related information in an easy or intuitive way.
Additionally, the message boards that allow LLIS users to discuss a
variety of homeland security topics are rarely used to exchange
information about recovery. For example, while almost 600 messages have
been exchanged on forums discussing preparedness and response issues as
of June 2009, only two messages have been posted to the message board
focused on disaster recovery (and they were both from the same
individual). A FEMA official with responsibility for LLIS told us that
there is an increasing recognition that recovery is an underserved area
of disaster management, and the agency can see benefits of potentially
including more information about recovery in LLIS.
To share lessons related to the mitigation phase, FEMA has created a
searchable online portfolio of case studies and best practices
submitted by individuals and communities describing the measures they
have taken to reduce the loss of life or property from future
disasters. Communities that have taken creative steps in implementing
good mitigation practices can submit those stories to FEMA where
officials will review and possibly include them in the online best
practices portfolio.
Unlike the information sharing mechanisms it has in place for the
preparedness, response, and mitigation phases of a disaster, FEMA does
not have a similar approach for sharing lessons focused on recovery.
Recovery lessons from specific disasters are sometimes available
through the FEMA Web site under the listings for specific disasters,
although the amount and nature of recovery information available this
way varies greatly. In addition, the Long-Term Community Recovery and
ESF #14 Web site contains considerable information on recovery, but
this site is mostly dedicated to providing technical guidance for
planning and does not permit recovery officials to share lessons or
learn about recovery best practices. FEMA officials told us that they
plan to develop a document compiling community-based best practices for
disaster recovery, but they do not know when it will be available.
Perhaps more useful than the sharing of reports and other written
accounts of recovery lessons and experiences is the ability to directly
network with other recovery officials who can answer questions and
relate insights first-hand. In the course of our work, we learned of
instances where this type of personal connection was particularly
valuable. For example, a Watsonville, California, official told us of
his efforts immediately after the Loma Prieta earthquake to contact a
local official in southern California because he had read that the
official had experienced an earthquake a few years earlier and he
wanted to solicit his guidance. The official from southern California
agreed to help and traveled to Watsonville the next day to share his
experiences and provide insights on potential recovery strategies. In
another example, when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005,
officials from Grand Forks, North Dakota, offered to help city leaders
in Biloxi, Mississippi, based on their experiences with the 1997 Grand
Forks/Red River flood.
Through one-on-one exchanges like these, state and local officials
involved in recovery can obtain tailored advice from individuals who
have addressed similar challenges themselves. For emergency managers
involved in the disaster preparedness and response phases, FEMA's LLIS
Web site has a network-building feature that can be used to foster this
type of exchange. LLIS provides its users with access to a directory of
other registered users that can be searched for a number of variables
including name, affiliation, and emergency management function
(primarily disciplines such as mass care and human services or public
health). The online directory mostly consists of officials and
researchers involved in various aspects of emergency management.
[Footnote 26] Such a directory, or one similar to it, might be very
useful to recovery officials seeking to network with, and learn from,
others with experiences or expertise in disaster recovery.
Conclusions:
Collaboration is essential for an effective partnership between the
wide range of participants involved in the disaster recovery process.
While effective collaboration has helped to facilitate recovery in past
disasters, experiences from the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes reveal that
more can be done in this area. Specifically, we have identified a
number of practices used during past disasters that can offer insights
for effective collaboration: developing and communicating common goals
to guide recovery; leveraging resources to facilitate recovery; using
recovery plans to agree on roles and responsibilities; and monitoring,
evaluating, and reporting on progress made toward recovery. While there
is no one right way for how jurisdictions should manage recovery nor is
there a recipe of techniques that fits all situations, the examples we
describe in this report--which were tailored to the specific needs and
conditions of those particular disasters--may provide insights into
improving collaboration among the many stakeholders involved in the
ongoing recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast as well as for future
catastrophic events.
Recovery stakeholders have a responsibility for fostering collaboration
during disaster recovery. State and local governments have taken the
lead in defining roles and responsibilities within pre-and post-
disaster recovery plans, a step that has helped to facilitate the
recovery process. The federal government has also played an important
role in fostering collaboration for recovery. For example, FEMA has
supported post-disaster planning efforts and hosted videoconferences
between experienced officials and those currently in the recovery
process. However, the agency can take additional steps to share
information focused on recovery so that it is captured and preserved
for the future. In the absence of a mechanism for compiling and
disseminating recovery information, valuable expertise from officials
who have first-hand recovery knowledge may be lost.
Recommendation for Executive Action:
To improve the ability of the federal government to capture and
disseminate recovery information, we recommend that the Secretary of
Homeland Security direct the Administrator of FEMA to establish a
mechanism for sharing information and best practices focused on
disaster recovery, including practices that promote effective
collaboration such as those discussed in this report. Options for doing
this could include (1) creating an approach, similar to the LLIS Web
site or the mitigation best practices portfolio, through which disaster
recovery lessons can be compiled and shared, and personal networks
among interested recovery officials encouraged; and/or (2) modifying
the LLIS Web site to add a focus on recovery by taking steps such as
including more recovery documents, creating a recovery topic area
within LLIS, and creating an online directory for recovery officials to
encourage networking and facilitate further sharing of recovery
experiences.
Agency Comments:
On June 19, 2009, we provided a draft of this report to the Secretary
of Homeland Security for comment. We received written comments on July
22, 2009. In its written comments, which are reprinted in appendix VII,
DHS concurred with our recommendation. In addition, the department
provided technical clarifications that we incorporated where
appropriate. We also provided drafts of relevant sections to public
officials, nongovernmental stakeholders, and recovery experts involved
in or knowledgeable of the specific examples cited in this report and
incorporated their comments as appropriate.
As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days
from the date of this letter. We will then send copies of this report
to the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Housing and Urban
Development, the FEMA Administrator, the Assistant Secretary of
Commerce for Economic Development, and the state and local officials we
contacted for this review. In addition, the report will be available on
our Web site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staff have any questions regarding this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-6806 or by email at CzerwinskiS@gao.gov.
Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public
Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who
made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix VIII.
Signed by:
Stanley J. Czerwinski:
Director:
Strategic Issues:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To identify recovery lessons from past experiences, we selected 5
catastrophic disasters: the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, Hurricane
Andrew in 1992, the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the 1995 Great Hanshin-
Awaji (Kobe) earthquake, and the 1997 Grand Forks/Red River flood to
review (see figure 1). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
defines a "catastrophic" event as one where the related federal costs
reach or exceed $500 million. Under this definition, all the disasters
selected for this review qualify as catastrophic. We chose these
disasters because they had devastating communitywide or regional impact
and occurred in urban areas of developed nations. Additionally, these
disasters occurred far enough in the past that we could observe the
long-term recovery process, occurred recently enough so that key
officials and supporting documentation are still available, and
represent different types of natural disasters.
We interviewed officials from national, state, and local governments
and nongovernmental organizations, as well as academic experts,
involved in or knowledgeable of the recovery following each of our
selected disasters. We also obtained and reviewed legislation,
ordinances, policies, and program documents that described steps that
were taken to facilitate long-term recovery following each of these
disasters as well as the disaster recovery literature. In some
instances, our review was limited by the availability of historic
documents and the accessibility of key officials engaged in recovery
from past disasters. To better understand the federal government's role
in recovery from these disasters, we interviewed officials at the
Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, the Economic Development
Administration in the Department of Commerce, and the Department of
Housing and Urban Development.
Figure 1: Five Disasters Included in this Review (1989-1997):
[Refer to PDF for image: maps of the United States and Japan]
The maps depict the location of the five disasters included in this
review:
In the United States:
Loma Prieta Earthquake, 1989 (Northern California);
Hurricane Andrew, 1992 (South Florida);
Northridge Earthquake, 1994 (Southern California);
Grand Forks Red River Flood, 1997 (Grand Forks, ND and East Grand
Forks, MN).
In Japan:
Kobe Earthquake,1995 (Southeastern Japan).
Source: GAO; Art Explosion (map).
[End of figure]
We visited the key communities impacted by four of the five disasters
in our study to meet officials involved in the recovery effort and
examine current conditions. Although we did not visit communities
affected by the 1997 Grand Forks/Red River flood, we were able to
gather the necessary information through telephone interviews with key
officials involved in the recovery as well as recovery experts
knowledgeable about the disaster. The scope of our work did not include
independent evaluation or verification regarding the extent to which
the communities' recovery efforts were successful and the practices we
discuss in this report only represent a selection of the many recovery
actions taken after these disasters.
To identify examples of good collaboration among recovery stakeholders,
we applied eight key practices we have reported on in prior work that
enhance and sustain collaboration: (1) define and articulate a common
outcome; (2) establish mutually reinforcing or joint strategies; (3)
identify and address needs by leveraging resources; (4) agree on roles
and responsibilities; (5) establish compatible policies, procedures,
and other means to operate across agency boundaries; (6) develop
mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results; (7) reinforce
agency accountability for collaborative efforts through agency plans
and reports; and (8) reinforce individual accountability for
collaborative efforts through performance management systems.[Footnote
27] We used this framework to assess the ways in which recovery
stakeholders collaborated in the five disasters included in our review.
While we found examples related to four of these good collaborative
practices, others that enhance coordination may also exist.[Footnote
28]
To understand how FEMA supports collaboration among recovery
stakeholders and the extent to which it facilitates the sharing of
lessons and experiences from past recovery efforts, we interviewed
officials from FEMA's Long-Term Community Recovery Branch and staff
responsible for managing the agency's Lessons Learned Information
Sharing (LLIS) Web site. We also obtained access to LLIS and FEMA's
online mitigation best practices portfolio, after which we reviewed the
content and operations of those systems.
We conducted this performance audit from June 2007 through July 2009 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Loma Prieta Earthquake:
Disaster Impacts:
The Loma Prieta earthquake, which occurred in the Santa Cruz mountains
in 1989, severely impacted four cities in northern California. San
Francisco experienced damage to several areas, including its
Embarcadero freeway, Marina district, and City Hall. In Oakland, the
earthquake caused the collapse of the Cypress Expressway as well as
damage to other infrastructure and low income housing. The cities of
Santa Cruz and Watsonville, both located near the earthquake epicenter,
suffered devastating destruction to their downtown districts (see
figure 2).
Figure 2: Selected Facts about the Impact of the Loma Prieta
Earthquake:
[Refer to PDF for image: map and fact sheet]
The map indicates the location of the epicenter of the earthquake near
Santa Cruz and Watsonville, California, south of the San Francisco Bay
area.
Associated facts:
Date: October 17, 1989.
Location: Northern California.
Disaster type: Magnitude 7.1 earthquake on the Richter scale[A].
Casualties: 63.
Injuries: 3,757.
Displacement: 12,000 people.
Estimated overall cost: $10 billion property damage ($15 billion in
2009 dollars).
Residential impact: 24,000 properties damaged.
Economic impact: 2,600 businesses damaged.
Sources: GAO presentation of information from the National Academy of
Sciences, U.S. Geological Survey, Earthquake Engineering
Research Institute, and GAO/RCED-96-136.
[A] According to the U.S. Geological Survey, an earthquake registering
magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale is considered to be "strong."
[End of figure]
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
The federal government provided significant funding to the affected
areas to facilitate its recovery from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Some examples of federal assistance for recovery are shown in figure 3.
Figure 3: Examples of Federal Assistance for Recovery from the Loma
Prieta Earthquake:
[Refer to PDF for image: illustration of data]
Congressional supplemental appropriation:
* $3.2 billion for 1989 domestic disasters($5 billion in 2009 dollars);
Public Laws 101-130 (Oct. 26, 1989) and 103-211 (Feb. 12, 1994).
Assistance from selected federal agencies:
* Federal Emergency Management Agency Public Assistance grants: $514
million for permanent work projects ($816 million in 2009 dollars);
* Department of Housing Community Development Block Grants: none;
* Commerce Economic Development Administration grants: $7 million for 8
projects ($11 million in 2009 dollars).
Sources: Presentation of GAO analysis of Appropriation Acts, GAO/RCED-
92-141, and data from the Economic Development Administration.
[End of figure]
The areas most impacted by the earthquake were Oakland, San Francisco,
and other cities in Santa Cruz county, including Santa Cruz,[Footnote
29] and Watsonville.[Footnote 30] Key aspects of disaster recovery
include planning, housing, economic development, and infrastructure.
The following presents an overview of selected recovery efforts after
the Loma Prieta earthquake in each of these areas. However, it does not
provide a comprehensive account of recovery actions taken.
Planning:
Two months following the earthquake, the Santa Cruz City Council
appointed a citizen group to develop an overall plan to rebuild the
devastated downtown area. Santa Cruz faced the challenge of reaching
consensus for decisions regarding recovery. The city facilitated
decision making during the recovery from the Loma Prieta earthquake as
a result of growing tension between citizens and local officials. To do
so, the city devised a formal structure that incorporated time frames
that helped different community groups reach consensus on a unified
recovery plan. It created Vision Santa Cruz, a 36-member citizen
advisory body that included wide representation from the neighborhood
and community groups, business, finance, labor, and nonprofit
organizations. To facilitate decision making among these groups,
according to a former Santa Cruz official, time limits were instituted
so that if Vision Santa Cruz did not agree on a plan by a certain date,
city officials would finalize the plan without the group's consensus.
Further, once a consensus was reached on an issue, it could not be
opened for discussion again. Although faced with the challenge of
uniting political groups with differing views in the community, Vision
Santa Cruz succeeded in bringing the community together by forging a
compromise among different stakeholders for recovery. Vision Santa Cruz
completed the Downtown Recovery Plan in September 1991, which provided
the policies, standards, and guidelines to direct the downtown
rebuilding.
The Downtown Recovery Plan provided guidance for building form,
character, and height; housing; accessibility; open space and
streetscape; circulation; and parking. According to a former Santa Cruz
official, the Downtown Recovery Plan took into account the needs of the
retail community by redesigning the business center. For example, the
plan proposed new design guidelines that made buildings more suitable
for retail purposes, such as requiring large ground floor windows to
ensure that stores received more lighting. Specifically, the main
street was designed to accommodate both pedestrians and low speed
traffic (as opposed to being pedestrian-only), preserved on-street
parking, and widened sidewalks. This plan is still in use today to
guide development projects in downtown Santa Cruz.
Watsonville relied on planning assistance offered by the Urban Land
Institute to create a redevelopment plan. The city followed the plan it
developed to rebuild and revitalize its downtown with a specific focus
on implementation and an ancillary focus on development potential,
planning, urban design, development goals, and marketing strategies.
Watsonville took the opportunity to make improvements to address
changing demographics of many blocks that became empty as a result of
the earthquake. However, not all aspects of the plan were successfully
implemented. For example, one of the plan's goals was to support and re-
open a department store. However, because the store's upscale retail
marketing did not fit with the changing demographics, sales dropped,
and the store closed within one year.
The Urban Land Institute also offered planning assistance to the city
of Santa Cruz; however, the final plan focused heavily on housing,
which was not the direction in which the city was interested.
Therefore, the city of Santa Cruz did not implement the plan. According
to a former Santa Cruz official, a key finding of the Urban Land
Institute was the need to establish a decision-making process to
overcome the differing political and business interests in the
community. Toward that end, the city established Vision Santa Cruz
which helped to facilitate the planning process for the city's downtown
recovery.
Housing:
Approximately 850 housing units in Watsonville (almost 10 percent of
the city's housing stock) were severely damaged or destroyed after the
Loma Prieta earthquake. According to a report funded by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, Watsonville planners drafted a rebuilding
ordinance within the first four days after the earthquake that
suspended the limits on rebuilding nonconforming construction. The
ordinance also streamlined the permitting process. Santa Cruz County,
which includes the city of Watsonville, passed a temporary one-half-
cent sales tax increase for 6 years, called Measure E. The proceeds
were targeted to damaged areas within the county based on an allocation
approved by voters. Watsonville received approximately $15 million
through Measure E which helped to repair the damaged housing. Further,
Watsonville also used portions of existing Department of Housing and
Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant funds that it
received prior to the earthquake (and not part of a supplemental or
special disaster appropriation) to repair and replace damaged housing
units. Within 1 year of the earthquake, almost 50 percent of the
damaged housing units in Watsonville were repaired or replaced.
The Loma Prieta earthquake resulted in the loss of many single-room
occupancy units in the cities of Oakland and Santa Cruz. Oakland
experienced destruction or severe damage of 1,300 single-room occupancy
units, which provided housing to many minority and elderly residents.
Oakland financed the replacement of single-room occupancy units through
California's Disaster Assistance Program. In Santa Cruz, single-room
occupancy units were built in several new buildings. According to a
subsequent evaluation of the earthquake, these buildings represented an
overall improvement in the housing stock.
Economic Development:
The cities of Watsonville and Santa Cruz adopted strategies for
economic development after the Loma Prieta earthquake. Watsonville,
which suffered about $60 million in damage (or equal to 350 percent of
its general fund annual budget prior to the earthquake) had the highest
per capita loss of any impacted city. To help restore its damaged
downtown, Watsonville built a new parking garage with retail space on
the first floor, improved the façades of rebuilt or refurbished
buildings, helped to secure federal funding for restoration of a local
department store, and constructed a performing arts center to replace a
damaged high school auditorium.
Santa Cruz, which lost approximately 20 percent of its sales tax due to
earthquake damage, worked with community groups to construct seven
large aluminum and fabric pavilions where local businesses that
suffered physical damage temporarily relocated. Santa Cruz also
constructed a parking garage with retail space on the first floor, and
a nine-screen cinema complex that brings 750,000 people a year
downtown, benefiting many other businesses because of the increased
foot traffic. As a result of these strategies, a lively and youthful
atmosphere in the downtown currently exists.
Infrastructure:
The Loma Prieta earthquake damaged several major transportation
structures in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Embarcadero
Freeway and the Cypress Expressway. The California Department of
Transportation (CalTrans) worked with the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) to finance the replacement of the Cypress
Expressway with a cost sharing ratio of 90 percent of the funding from
the federal government and 10 percent from the state. However,
construction did not begin until 1994 partly because of community
opposition to rebuilding the expressway in its original location, which
divided a neighborhood in West Oakland. To address community concerns,
CalTrans and FHWA moved the expressway so that it runs along the edge
of the residential area. The space previously taken by the expressway
is now occupied by new businesses, housing, and parks. See figure 4 for
images of the Cypress Expressway before and after the replacement
project.
Figure 4: The Cypress Expressway Suffered Extensive Damage from the
1989 Earthquake (top); Oakland Moved the Expressway to Reconnect a
Neighborhood that Had Been Previously Divided (bottom):
[Refer to PDF for image: three photographs]
Two photographs from 1989 are indicated as "Before."
One photograph from 2008 is indicated as "After." This photograph
depicts the location of the replacement freeway, as well as pointing
out the original location of the Cypress Viaduct.
Sources: Photographs courtesy of the California Department of
Transportation, District 4, Oakland, Calif. Photographer: Bob Colin (top
right and top left). Photographer: William R. Hall (bottom).
[End of figure]
In San Francisco, the controversial decision to demolish the
Embarcadero Freeway caused business owners to worry that the lack of a
freeway would negatively impact travel to the waterfront. Today, the
Embarcadero Freeway has been replaced with an above-ground park that
connects the city to the waterfront. Other affected jurisdictions in
Northern California also experienced significant infrastructure damage.
For example, Watsonville's sewer system was heavily damaged as a result
of uneven ground settlement, which took more than 5 years to repair.
[End of section]
Appendix III: Hurricane Andrew:
Disaster Impacts:
Hurricane Andrew made landfall over southern Miami-Dade County in
Florida as a category 5 hurricane, severely impacting several cities in
southern Florida, including Homestead and Florida City (see figure 5).
As a result of the hurricane, the city of Homestead suffered a 31
percent decline to its population, 60 percent of the aggregated
residential property value, and 29 percent of its average commercial
real estate value. Additionally, the Department of Defense's decision
to scale down the presence of the Homestead Air Force Base contributed
to the loss of thousands of jobs. In Florida City, located near
Homestead, Hurricane Andrew damaged every building, reducing
residential property value by 78 percent, and the average commercial
real estate value by 32 percent.
Figure 5: Selected Facts about the Impact of Hurricane Andrew:
[Refer to PDF for image: map and fact sheet]
The map indicates the location of the hurricane and its proximity to
Florida City, Homestead, and Homestead Air Reserve Base.
Associated facts:
Date: August 24, 1992.
Location: South Florida.
Disaster type: Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale (which
ranges from a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 5).
Casualties: 15 direct and 29 indirect in Florida.
Displacement: More than 1 million ordered to evacuate; approximately
160,000-180,000 homeless after the storm.
Estimated overall cost: $25 billion in Florida ($36 billion in 2009
dollars).
Residential impact: Approximately 25,000 properties destroyed; 37,000
suffered major damage; 51,000 suffered minor damage24,000 properties
damaged.
Economic impact: More than 100,000 jobs affected.
Sources: GAO presentation of information from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, the Economic Development Administration,
the International Hurricane Center, and GAO/RCED-93-186.
[End of figure]
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
The federal government provided significant funding to the affected
area to facilitate its recovery from Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Some
examples of federal assistance for recovery are shown in figure 6.
Figure 6: Examples of Federal Assistance for Recovery from Hurricane
Andrew:
[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated data]
Congressional supplemental appropriation:
$6.2 billion for natural disasters including Hurricane Andrew ($9
billion in 2009 dollars);
Public Laws 102-368 (Sept. 23, 1992) and 103-50 (July 2, 1993).
Assistance from selected federal agencies:
* Federal Emergency Management Agency Public Assistance grants: $822
($1.2 billion in 2009 dollars) with $245 million for permanent work
projects ($355 billion in 2009 dollars);
* Department of Housing Community Development Block Grants: $85 million
($123 million in 2009 dollars); also includes funds for Hurricane Iniki
and Typhoon Omar;
* Commerce Economic Development Administration grants: $50.9 million
for 28 projects ($73 million in 2009 dollars).
Sources: Presentation of GAO analysis of Appropriation Acts as well as
data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of
Commerce Office of Inspector General.
[End of figure]
Key aspects of disaster recovery include planning, housing, economic
development, and infrastructure. The following presents an overview of
selected recovery efforts after Hurricane Andrew in each of these
areas. However, it does not provide a comprehensive account of recovery
actions taken.
Planning:
To help plan for the recovery from Hurricane Andrew, community leaders
created a nonprofit organization called We Will Rebuild. The
organization was led by the publisher of the Miami-Herald as well as
other political, business, and civic leaders in Miami-Dade County. A
key role that We Will Rebuild played was to coordinate the distribution
of nearly $28 million of private and public funds. We Will Rebuild
worked to devise recovery strategies through 29 committees that focused
on different issue areas, including agriculture, business and economic
development, housing, social services, as well as families and
children. Committee members developed plans to achieve goals within
those areas and in some instances implemented those strategies
directly. For example, to achieve the goal of preventing the complete
closure of the Homestead Air Force Base, one committee successfully
advocated for the base to be changed into a combined civil and military
facility.
We Will Rebuild also funded planning meetings, coordinated through
local universities, which brought together as many as 300 professionals
over a 3 week period to create solutions for rebuilding Miami-Dade
County. Teams comprised of architects, engineers, planners, and as well
as others from the public and private sectors presented proposals for
how to rebuild communities and neighborhoods. Eventually these meetings
produced 16 projects focused on many issues such as site-specific
neighborhood revitalization plans focused on urban planning,
transportation, historic preservation, and natural resources for 28
communities in the county. Many of these plans served as the basis for
the redevelopment of neighborhoods and future regional developments
related to water management, transportation development, and the
preservation of buildings and open space.
Housing:
Hurricane Andrew caused devastating housing damage in Miami-Dade
County, resulting in the destruction of over 25,000 homes and major
damage to over 37,000 homes. According to a city official, Florida City
worked with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to create a
program that provided second mortgages for homeowners to repair damaged
housing. Today, the population of Florida City is approximately 10,000,
a significant increase from the 3,000 still remaining in the wake of
the hurricane.
Over 8,000 Homestead residents, or 31 percent of its pre-hurricane
population, left the city, leaving many abandoned properties that
created challenges for the city to redevelop some areas. Some
residential communities that suffered significant damage from the
hurricane were eventually rebuilt. For example, the Naranja Lakes
development, a private condominium community of thousands of residents,
was razed and is being rebuilt with a mix of condominium and single
family homes.
Economic Development:
To rebuild the economy in the wake of Hurricane Andrew, a number of
economic development organizations in Miami-Dade County worked to
revitalize affected communities. One of these groups, the Economic
Development Council was founded by local business leaders in response
to Hurricane Andrew to represent the economic development interests of
the unincorporated portions of Miami-Dade County. The group led efforts
to beautify a major roadway and commercial center through the area. The
Economic Development Council hoped that such improvement projects would
attract residents who had moved away after the hurricane to return to
the county once more.
The mission of the Vision Council, another organization that promoted
economic redevelopment after Hurricane Andrew, was to attract new
businesses to Miami-Dade County. The council serves Homestead, Florida
City, and other parts of southern Miami-Dade County. The Vision Council
experienced mixed success in its economic development efforts. For
example, the Vision Council assisted Homestead's efforts to market and
build a 270 acre commerce park, called Park of Commerce. The Vision
Council also supported the creation of the Homestead-Miami Speedway,
which sponsors professional car racing events year round. However, not
all of its projects have been successful. For example, we observed that
the Park of Commerce which the Vision Council supported was mostly
vacant today. A Vision Council official explained that factors such as
the perceived risk of another storm in the area, high insurance rates,
and population decline has deterred some businesses from relocating to
Miami-Dade County.
Infrastructure:
Hurricane Andrew destroyed much of the public and transportation
infrastructure in southern Florida. For example, Florida City lost
every public building to Hurricane Andrew, according to a city
official. The city rebuilt the government center complex, which
included the city hall, jail, and police station. Because the city's
public funds were insufficient to rebuild the new government center
complex, it used funding from the Economic Development Administration
(EDA) in the Department of Commerce and the state to complete the
center.
Homestead and Florida City suffered sustained damage to their water
systems. In Homestead, EDA provided $7.7 million partly for the
construction of water and sewer lines, which extended these services to
the Miami-Homestead Speedway and Park of Commerce facilities. Without
those infrastructure enhancements, these projects could not have been
developed. Florida City also sustained extensive damage to its water
delivery system. EDA provided almost $5 million for the repair,
replacement, and expansion the city's water system (see figure 7). As a
result of the water system's expansion, the State Farmers Market was
also restored, creating almost 400 jobs.
Figure 7: Florida City's Water Distribution System Was Heavily Damaged:
[Refer to PDF for image: two photographs]
Photograph from 1992;
Photograph from 2002.
Sources: Lou Toman, Sun Sentinel (left); Carl Seibert, Sun Sentinel
(right).
[End of figure]
Miami-Dade County also used its recovery efforts from the hurricane to
improve its transportation infrastructure. A local leader explained
that the departure of some county residents following Hurricane Andrew
resulted in the widespread dispersion of employees and employers. For
example, the lack of transportation impacted the ability of the
construction industry to find adequate labor, increasing both operating
costs and stifling competition. To provide access to employment for
individuals who work in the county, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency provided at least $38 million to increase transportation
services to the county.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Northridge Earthquake:
Disaster Impacts:
The epicenter of the 1994 Northridge earthquake was located in western
Los Angeles county, causing significant physical and economic damage
(see figure 8). The earthquake devastated damaged southern California's
freeway system, including the collapse of 11 overpasses on some of the
busiest freeways in Los Angeles. The earthquake also caused widespread
residential damage throughout many neighborhoods in the San Fernando
Valley and other pockets in central and south central Los Angeles.
Until the domestic terrorist attacks in 2001, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency spent more money on the response to, and recovery
from, Northridge than any previous disaster.
Figure 8: Selected Facts about the Impact of the Northridge Earthquake:
[Refer to PDF for image: map and fact sheet]
The map indicates the location of the epicenter of the earthquake and
its proximity to Northridge, California.
Associated facts:
Date: January 17, 1994.
Location: Southern California.
Disaster type: Magnitude 6.8 earthquake on the Richter scale[A].
Casualties: 57.
Injuries: More than 9,000.
Displacement: More than 20,000 displaced from their homes.
Estimated overall cost: $20 billion ($28 billion in 2009 dollars).
Residential impact: Over 250,000 housing units damaged.
Economic impact: $327 million in lost state and local taxes ($453
million in 2009 dollars).
Sources: GAO presentation of information from the U.S. Geological
Survey, the city of Los Angeles, and GAO/RCED-94-193.
[A] According to the U.S. Geological Survey, an earthquake registering
magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale is considered to be "strong."
[End of figure]
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
The federal government provided significant funding to the affected
area to facilitate its recovery from the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Some examples of federal assistance for recovery are shown in figure 9.
Figure 9: Examples of Federal Assistance for Recovery from the
Northridge Earthquake:
[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated data]
Congressional supplemental appropriation:
$8.7 billion for the Northridge earthquake and other disasters ($12
billion in 2009 dollars);
Public Laws 103-211 (Feb. 12, 1994), 103-317 (Aug. 26, 1994), and 103-
327 (Sept. 28, 1994).
Assistance from selected federal agencies:
* Federal Emergency Management Public Assistance grants: $4.4 billion
($8 billion in 2009 dollars), of that amount, $3.9 billion was spent on
permanent work projects;
* Department of Housing Community Development Block Grants: $725
million ($1 billion in 2009 dollars);
* Commerce Economic Development Administration grants: $85 million for
21 projects ($117 million in 2009 dollars).
Sources: Presentation of GAO analysis of Appropriation Acts, GAO
summary of documents from the city of Grand Forks, N.D., and data from
the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Economic Development
Administration.
[End of figure]
Key aspects of disaster recovery include planning, housing, economic
development, and infrastructure. The following presents an overview of
selected recovery efforts after the Northridge earthquake in each of
these areas. However, it does not provide a comprehensive account of
recovery actions taken.
Planning:
In 1987, prior to the Northridge earthquake, the city of Los Angeles
developed a Recovery and Reconstruction Plan in preparation for a
future disaster. In the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake, the
city adapted this plan to guide its recovery efforts. According to an
evaluation funded by the National Science Foundation, the plan
contributed to fostering good working relations between city officials
and other stakeholders. The process of developing the plan itself
strengthened relationships between city departments and agencies which
in turn helped to facilitate collaboration during the recovery process.
City departments also implemented several strategies outlined in the
plan, such as developing loan programs for businesses unable to receive
Small Business Administration loans, establishing an interdepartmental
group to adapt the recovery plan for Northridge, streamlining permit
processing, establishing mutual aid agreements, and forming
reconstruction task forces.
Housing:
After the earthquake, the city of Los Angeles designated 17 areas that
suffered extensive damage as "ghost towns," to received priority
attention. The vacating of 7,500 housing units in those areas resulted
in criminal trespassers such as drug dealers, prostitution rings, and
squatters. In turn, those activities increased burglaries in
surrounding neighborhoods and resulted in local businesses losing their
customer base. The city's housing department collaborated with the
police, public works, and building departments to create a special work
unit to focus on security and offer refinancing to help property owners
in the ghost towns rebuild. A subsequent evaluation of the housing
reconstruction after Northridge found that this program contributed to
the successful rebuilding of those areas and helped to stabilize
surrounding neighborhoods.
Economic Development:
The city of Los Angeles implemented different strategies to assist
businesses that were impacted by the earthquake. According to city
officials, the Los Angeles used the Department of Housing and Urban
Development's (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to create
a $24 million commercial recovery loan program that included a grace
period for loan repayment so to provide businesses with a window of
time to get reestablished after the disaster. The city also used grants
from the Economic Development Administration (EDA) in the Department of
Commerce to develop projects that created new jobs. For example, an EDA
grant funded the construction of a biomedical facility for research and
development at California State University at Northridge that resulted
in the creation of 1,600 new jobs. Further, the city helped to fund an
outreach and counseling program developed by a local nonprofit to
provide direct technical assistance to affected businesses in the San
Fernando Valley. Specifically, the nonprofit provided guidance to
businesses on obtaining federal and local governmental financial
assistance, as well as strategies for adjusting to changes in the
business environment.
Infrastructure:
According to Los Angeles officials, the city prioritized the
replacement and restoration of its highway infrastructure to restore
the region's transportation networks. To maintain partial traffic flows
immediately after the earthquake, the city established alternative
detour routing for the highways. The earthquake resulted in 480 damage
locations to federal, state, and local roads throughout the Los Angeles
area and forced the closure of four major highway corridors that,
together, carried over 780,000 vehicles per day before the earthquake.
This caused significant disruption to commuting patterns as well as the
transportation of freight.
To expedite the completion of highway rebuilding projects, the
California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) included financial
incentives in its contracts for each major restoration or repair
contract. Under this approach, bonuses were available to each
contractor who completed projects early. CalTrans calculated bonuses
based on an analysis of the economic cost incurred to the region as a
result of the disruption to traffic and associated delays. As a result
of this approach, bonuses were awarded to 9 out of the 10 eligible
contractors. According to a CalTrans official, these incentives allowed
the city to restore these freeways within a few months after the
earthquake (see figure 10).
Figure 10: The Gavin Canyon Underpass, Part of Southern California's
Interstate 5, Suffered Severe Damage but Was Restored Within a Few
Months:
[Refer to PDF for image: two photographs]
Photograph from January 1994;
Photograph from June 1994.
Sources: U.S. Department of Transportation (left), California
Department of Transportation (right).
[End of figure]
The Federal Highway Administration also granted other measures of
flexibility within its regulations to facilitate infrastructure
recovery. For example, the agency granted exemptions from certain
regulations, such as allowing the California Department of
Transportation to proceed without conducting environmental impact
statements as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
[Footnote 31]
[End of section]
Appendix V: Kobe Earthquake:
Disaster Impacts:
On January 17, 1995, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake caused significant
damage to the Japanese city of Kobe in Hyogo prefecture.[Footnote 32]
As a result of the earthquake, the affected areas sustained heavy
damage and many casualties. For example, over 6,000 people were killed
and 40,000 injured. In addition to destroying over 400,000 homes and
buildings, the earthquake caused extensive damage to roads, railroads,
highways, and subway stations (see figure 11). The port of Kobe,
Japan's leading container shipping port at the time, also experienced
heavy damage to almost all container berths.
Figure 11: Selected Facts about the Impact of the Kobe Earthquake:
[Refer to PDF for image: map and fact sheet]
The map indicates the location of the epicenter of the earthquake and
its proximity to Kobe City, Japan, as well as high damage areas and
fault lines.
Associated facts:
Date: January 17, 1995.
Location: Japan.
Disaster type: Magnitude 7.3 earthquake on the Richter scale[A].
Casualties: 6,433.
Injuries: 40,071.
Displacement: 316,678 evacuees.
Estimated overall cost: More than $150 billion in property loss ($204
billion in 2009 dollars).
Residential impact: About 400,000 damaged houses and buildings.
Economic impact: As much as $50 billion in direct economic disruption
($68 billion in 2009 dollars). Kobe‘s port was shut down for 2 years
and suffered an estimated $10 billion in damages ($14 billion in 2009
dollars). As a result of the decrease in traffic volume during the port‘
s closure, its ranking dropped from 6th in the world to 24th by 1995.
Sources: GAO presentation of information from the Japanese central
government; Stephanie Chang, Ph.D.; David Edgington, Ph.D.; and
Haruo Hayashi, Ph.D.
[A] According to the U.S. Geological Survey, an earthquake registering
magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale is considered to be "strong."
[End of figure]
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
The Japanese government provided significant funding to facilitate
recovery from the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Some examples of national
government assistance for recovery are shown in figure 12.
Figure 12: Examples of National Government Assistance for Recovery from
the Kobe Earthquake:
[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated data]
* The central government allocated more than $58 billion ($79 billion
in 2009 dollars) in first three years following earthquake to
reconstruct basic infrastructure, housing, and other physical
facilities.
*The central government helped Kobe City and Hyogo Prefecture establish
a special loan fund of approximately $9 billion ($12 billion in 2009
dollars) repayable in 10 years, to support reconstruction activities
not covered by other national programs.
* Special financial assistance legislation was created on March 1, 1995
to provide indirect individual assistance to small businesses,
homeowners, and local public authorities.
Sources: GAO presentation of data from Laurie Johnson, Ph.D. and
Professor Kenneth Topping.
[End of figure]
Recovery after the Kobe earthquake was generally a top-down process of
post-disaster planning and financing. The government prioritized the
rapid rebuilding of infrastructure and economic stabilization and later
focused on housing and social recovery. The physical reconstruction
process took less than 3 years to complete. Specifically, the city of
Kobe designated 24 areas to prioritize for rebuilding, using national
government funds to widen roads, add parks and open spaces, and
construct other public facilities. For the first 3 to 4 years after the
earthquake, the focus was mainly focused on physical reconstruction. In
subsequent years, the government shifted it focus to community
development, economic development, and the restoration of communities.
Key aspects of disaster recovery include planning, housing, economic
development, and infrastructure. The following presents an overview of
selected recovery efforts after the Kobe earthquake in each of these
areas. However, it does not provide a comprehensive account of recovery
actions taken.
Planning:
Immediately following the earthquake, Japan's national government
implemented a 2-month moratorium where it did not approve any building
permits so that the local governments could finalize planning before
the rebuilding process began. Hyogo prefecture and the city of Kobe
adopted complementary recovery plans within 2 months of the earthquake-
-in March 1995--which prioritized projects that replaced infrastructure
as well as others that would help stabilize the economy and attract new
businesses.
After the earthquake, there was a relatively short amount of time to
submit proposals for the national budget in order to be considered for
the coming year. To ensure that they could take advantage of national
government funding as soon as possible, the city of Kobe and Hyogo
prefecture completed its recovery plans promptly. Facing this deadline,
local officials devised a two-phase strategy to develop a plan that
could quickly identify broad recovery goals to provide a basis for
budget requests to meet the national budget deadline. After that
initial planning phase, the governments then collaborated with
residents to develop detailed plans for specific communities.
Housing:
The national government funded a 3-year emergency housing plan to build
about 72,000 permanent new housing units throughout Kobe and Hyogo to
replace an estimated 82,000 houses lost due to the earthquake. They
planned to provide around 8,200 through the private rental market and
more than half through public housing agencies. This overall target
level was achieved by March 1998 when more than 120,000 new housing
units were constructed. The accumulated number of new housing units
built by 2005 was estimated to be over 222,000. Almost all the
replacement housing was provided in multi-rise condominium structures,
with approximately 56 percent of those available as public housing
units. Both the public and private sector used a variety of strategies,
aimed at many levels of the population, to ensure that replacement
housing would be built. The result was that more housing was built than
had been lost. According to an expert on Japan's recovery, the city of
Kobe has recently experienced challenges in attracting new occupants--
especially younger families--to move into these units.
Economic Development:
The Kobe earthquake had lasting impacts on several industries,
including the port and small businesses. The port of Kobe, Japan's
leading container shipping port, sustained heavy damage to almost all
container berths. Port repairs took almost 1 year to complete, during
which time the port disruption was estimated to be an amount equivalent
to the income of 40,000 workers. The city of Kobe completed its port
restoration by March 1997 (see figure 13). However, port activity
stalled at around 80 percent of pre-earthquake levels. In October 1998,
exports from the port of Kobe to Asian countries declined by 24.3
percent from the previous year. The negative impact of damage to the
local economy and regional exports, in addition to the relocation of
many container cargos to other ports during the port of Kobe's closure
contributed to its decline. Further, changing trends in the
international trade industry introduced increased competition from
other Asian ports. As a result of these factors, the port of Kobe has
not fully recovered. For example, while the port ranked 6th in the
world for volume in 1994, it dropped to the 24th position in 1995 and
the 33rd in 2006.
Figure 13: Although the City of Kobe Restored the Port of Kobe by March
1997, the Port Never Fully Recovered:
[Refer to PDF for image: two photographs]
Photograph from 1995.
Photograph from 1997.
Source: City of Kobe.
[End of figure]
Local industries, such as chemical and steel manufacturers as well as
small businesses, were also affected by the earthquake. Chemical and
steel manufacturers did not operate for several months after the event.
Large companies, such as Kobe Steel and Mitsubishi Industries, were
able to map out effective recovery strategies and were less affected by
the earthquake. On the other hand, smaller industries, also severely
damaged by the earthquake, were unable to recover as easily as the
larger manufacturers. For example, smaller businesses such as shoe
manufacturers, sake breweries, and roof-tile makers never fully
recovered from the earthquake.
The city of Kobe took several actions to stimulate the local economy
with mixed success. For example, Kobe established support systems for
affected businesses such as special no-interest loans and subsidies for
the construction of temporary stores and factories. The city also
created the "Luminaire," a festival of illuminated lights which began
in the winter following the earthquake to boost morale of local
residents and to attract tourists. In 2003, the event drew 28.1 million
visitors, which increased the number of tourists by 115 percent from
pre-earthquake levels. However, not all of its efforts were successful.
For example, the city did not have enough funds to help all the small
businesses that needed financial assistance. Some small businesses
could not recover from the earthquake and closed.
Recognizing the need to diversify Kobe's economy from its traditional
port and manufacturing businesses, the city took steps to attract and
develop several new industries. Kobe recognized that it could benefit
from new infrastructure projects to change the industrial base of the
city. Soon after the disaster occurred, the city conducted a study to
assess economic conditions in Kobe. This study showed that although
some of the economic challenges the city faced were a result of the
earthquake, a more fundamental problem was Kobe's continued reliance on
"old economy" industries, such as shipbuilding, steel, and shoe
manufacturing. With this information, the city, in coordination with
Hyogo prefecture, targeted new industries--such as medical,
pharmaceutical, robotics, and information technology companies--to
establish businesses in the region.
To attract companies from these targeted industries, the city of Kobe
and Hyogo prefecture offered loans, subsidies, tax incentives, and
inexpensive office space. Further, these jurisdictions proposed
reductions in existing government regulations for the medical and
information technology sectors. These plans allowed foreign researchers
to work in Kobe without overly rigorous visa regulations. Additionally,
the city sought to remove regulations that prevented foreign firms from
participating in the medical industry and thereby encourage the entry
of foreign researchers and business persons. Overall, Kobe and Hyogo
achieved success in diversifying its economy. About 10 years after the
earthquake, over 285 new companies moved to the city, 40 of which were
foreign firms. Additionally, six public facilities--including centers
for business, developmental biology, and heath care--had relocated to
the city as well.
Infrastructure:
The Kobe earthquake caused significant damage to the infrastructure and
transportation network in affected areas. Extensive rail and roadway
damage included the collapse of significant portions of three major
freeway routes, damage to rail systems, and the collapse of Kobe's
subway stations. There was also significant damage to the water, gas,
and sewer systems. Over a million households lost access to water, gas,
electricity, and sewage after the earthquake. The national government
prioritized the replacement of the public infrastructure and set aside
the largest portion of its financial support for the reconstruction of
essential infrastructure (such as water and sewage systems) and
transportation networks.
The national Ministry of Construction was directly involved to assist
the city and prefecture with the reconstruction. For example, the
ministry provided resources for the replacement of electric power,
water, and other utilities. Because of the government's prioritization
of these issues, the damaged infrastructure was restored in a
relatively short time. Reconstruction of rail lines, some of which are
privately owned, was completed within 7 months. Collapsed freeways,
including the Hanshin Expressway, were restored within 20 months of the
earthquake. See figure 14 for images of restored rail lines and
freeways after the earthquake. Similarly, utility services were also
quickly repaired. Residents regained electricity in about 6 days and
were able to access gas, water, and waste system services in less than
3 months after the earthquake.
Figure 14: Japan Restored Damaged Railways and Highways Approximately
20 Months after the Earthquake:
[Refer to PDF for image: four photographs]
Above left and above right: Damaged railways were restored by August
1995, seven months after the earthquake:
Photograph from January 1995;
Photograph from August 1995.
Far left and near left: The Japanese government restored collapsed
highways, including the Hanshin Expressway. The project was complete 20
months after the earthquake:
Photograph from January 1995;
Photograph from September 1996.
Source: City of Kobe.
[End of figure]
[End of section]
Appendix VI: Grand Forks/Red River Flood:
Disaster Impacts:
The 1997 Grand Forks/Red River flood devastated Grand Forks, North
Dakota, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota. Following a season of record
snowfall, the Red River flooded up to 2,200 square miles in these
states, an area about twice the size of Rhode Island. The flood damaged
83 percent of affected homes and impacted all downtown businesses. In
East Grand Forks, 99 percent of homes and businesses were damaged (see
figure 15).
Figure 15: Selected Facts about the Impact of the 1997 Grand Forks/Red
River Flood:
[Refer to PDF for image: map and fact sheet]
The map indicates the location of the Grand Forks/Red River Flood,
including the area covered by the floodwater, the levee and floodwall
system, and the State/city boundary.
Associated facts:
Date: April 1997.
Location: East Grand Forks, Minnesota, and Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Disaster type: Flood.
Casualties: None.
Displacement: 56,025 total for both Grand Forks, N.D., and East Grand
Forks, Minn.
Estimated overall cost: $3.6 billion ($4.7 billion in 2009 dollars).
Residential impact: More than 80 percent of homes damaged in Grand
Forks and East Grand Forks.
Economic impact: Every business in downtown Grand Forks and East Grand
Forks suffered damage.
Sources: GAO presentation of data from the Federal Emergency Management
Agency and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency.
[End of figure]
Long-term Recovery Snapshot:
The federal government provided significant funding to the affected
area to facilitate its recovery from the 1997 Grand Forks/Red River
flood. Some examples of federal assistance for recovery are shown in
figure 16.
Figure 16: Examples of Federal Assistance for Recovery from the Grand
Forks/Red River Flood:
[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated data]
Congressional supplemental appropriation:
$5.8 billion for flooding and other natural disasters ($7.6 billion in
2009 dollars);
Public Law 105-18 (June 12, 1997).
Assistance from selected federal agencies:
* Federal Emergency Management Agency Public Assistance grants: $357
million ($466 million in 2009 dollars);
* Department of Housing Community Development Block Grants: $142
million ($186 million in 2009 dollars);
* Commerce Economic Development Administration grants:$66 million for
124 projects ($86 million in 2009 dollars).
Sources: Presentation of GAO analysis of Appropriation Acts; GAO
summary of documents from the city of Grand Forks, N.D.; and data from
the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Economic Development
Administration.
[End of figure]
Key aspects of disaster recovery include planning, housing, economic
development, and infrastructure. The following presents an overview of
selected recovery efforts after the Grand Forks/Red River flood in each
of these areas. However, it does not provide a comprehensive account of
recovery actions taken.
Planning:
In the wake of the flood, the mayor of Grand Forks asked directors from
the city's urban development, public works, and finance departments to
collaborate in order to contribute their respective expertise to help
the city create a recovery plan. The mayor delegated much of her
authority to these civil servants, known as the Tri-Chairs, allowing
them to set priorities for recovery, submit action steps for approval,
and collectively manage the city's recovery resources. The Tri-Chairs,
City Council, representatives from the federal Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD), and other city staff collaborated to
create a detailed flood recovery action plan for the city that
identified (1) broad recovery goals, (2) roles and responsibilities
associated with specific projects, and (3) potential sources for
funding those activities. Specifically, the plan identified five broad
recovery goals covering areas such as housing and community
redevelopment, business redevelopment, and infrastructure
rehabilitation. The plan details a number of supporting objectives and
tasks to be implemented in order to achieve the stated goals.
Additionally, the plan identified a target completion date for each
task.
Consultants that provided technical assistance on the planning process
were hired using HUD's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). A key
role that these federally-funded consultants played was to maintain
good communications and coordination between the city and HUD. The
consultants facilitated communications through scheduling and
publicizing meetings, providing workspace, and convening weekly
conference calls. According to a subsequent evaluation of the
consultants' efforts, these activities helped to build a team mentality
among stakeholders by encouraging the sharing of information and common
problem-solving. An important result of this communication was the
completion of Grand Forks' recovery plan. A city evaluation of the
recovery plan found that the process of specifying goals and
identifying funding sources allowed the city to conceive and formulate
projects in collaboration with the city council and representatives
from state and local governments. This helped Grand Forks meet its
recovery needs as well as adhere to federal and state disaster
assistance funding laws and regulations.
Housing:
The cities of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks took measures to buy out
housing located in the 100-year floodplain of the Red River. Grand
Forks officials developed a buy-out program that purchased nearly 800
homes, which was about 10 percent of the city's housing stock at the
time. To determine the value of properties in the buy-out program, the
city created teams to assess each home and based the value on pre-flood
price of the home along with a deduction of insurance payments.
According to a Grand Forks official, the city also changed existing
land-use ordinances to prevent future building in the 100-year flood
zone.
In East Grand Forks, where nearly 99 percent of the homes were damaged
by the flood, officials also established a buy-out program for
approximately 400 homes located in the 100-year floodplain. The city
used local realtors to determine property values, and the city provided
a 7 to 10 percent premium above the house value to account for
rebuilding costs. East Grand Forks used U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation
Grant Program funding to support its buy-out program.
Economic Development:
To focus on issues of economic recovery, the mayor of Grand Forks
formed a task force on business redevelopment comprised of 15 prominent
business leaders to address issues such as getting access to funding
for business recovery and increasing opportunities for business
development and growth. The business redevelopment task force comprised
of seven committees that met regularly to discuss these issues. Grand
Forks created several business redevelopment programs using federal
funding. For example, using almost $2 million from HUD's CDBG program
and over $5 million from the Economic Development Administration, the
city constructed Noah's Ark, a large industrial building developed for
the purpose of providing temporary office space to any displaced small
business in the Grand Forks region. According to a Grand Forks
official, the Noah's Ark building was converted into an Amazon.com call
center in 1999. The city also developed several projects which
incorporated mitigation techniques so those structures would be better
prepared for a future flood. For example, the city changed the design
of a convention center by raising the main event arena space of a
convention center to ground level to mitigate against future flooding.
The University of North Dakota also incorporated disaster resistant
features into its construction of a new $100 million hockey arena to
protect it from blizzards, floods, and wind.
According to East Grand Forks officials, the city's business community
relied upon the University of Minnesota's School of Architecture to
development a strategy for economic recovery. As part of its economic
redevelopment after the flood, East Grand Forks entered into an
agreement with a major outdoor retailer to build a $7 million store if
it were to employ local residents in the store. Since its opening, the
retailer has thrived in East Grand Forks and is one of the fastest
growing stores in this nationwide chain.
Infrastructure:
After the flooding, Grand Forks and East Grand Forks took steps to
address their cities' lack of an adequate flood-control infrastructure
to help reduce damage from future flooding of the Red River. The U.S.
Army:
Corps of Engineers assisted both cities in the construction of new
flood protection consisting of levees and floodwall systems. The Grand
Forks levees have a diversion channel to redirect water around to the
west side of the city. Its flood walls were elevated an additional 3
feet making it possible to add clay to levy to provide more protection
in the event of severe flooding. In East Grand Forks, officials
explained that the city built a nonpermanent floodwall that can be
taken down and assembled when needed, because of concerns about keeping
the city open to the view of the river. See figure 17 for images of the
Red River before and after the infrastructure construction project.
Figure 17: After the Flood, Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East Grand
Forks, Minnesota, Took Steps to Address Their Cities' Lack of an
Adequate Flood-Control Infrastructure to Help Reduce Damage from Future
Flooding:
[Refer to PDF for image: three photographs]
Before:
Photograph of 1st Avenue at North 3rd Street, Grand Forks, N.D. (1997).
Photograph of East Grand Forks, Minn., side of Sorlie Bridge (1997).
After:
Photograph of both areas (2006).
Sources: Photographs courtesy of Grand Forks Herald, Photographer: Eric
Hylden (top left); North Dakota State Water Commission (top right);
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (bottom).
[End of figure]
In December 1998, Grand Forks and East Grand Forks jointly agreed to
create a "greenway," which would manage the impact of rising river
water as well as provide a natural space located between the levee
system and river banks for recreational uses. For example, the greenway
includes trails, golf courses, boat-ramps, campgrounds, athletic
fields, and a wildflower garden. These infrastructure improvements,
including the greenway and permanent river dikes, have successfully
reduced property damage in subsequent floods. During a severe flood in
2006, Grand Forks only incurred minor infrastructure and property
damage, as compared to the damage suffered in the 1997 flooding.
After the 1997 flood, Grand Forks' water treatment and distribution
facilities were inundated with flood water and suffered heavy damage,
resulting in no water service for 13 days and no drinkable water for 23
days. Grand Forks' water system suffered significant damage and needed
repairs to restore the water distribution and treatment facilities. The
city used various federal and state funds for the restoration,
including approximately $5.3 million from FEMA. The city experienced
challenges during the sewer and water treatment system's closeout
process (the last step of the program's process, during which FEMA
certifies that the recovery work has been completed and eligible costs
have been reimbursed). FEMA questioned whether certain damage was pre-
existing or occurred as a result of the flood. The city and FEMA came
to an agreement after the city provided over 40-hours worth of video
documentation of the sewers, showing both previous damage and flood-
related damage, which eventually resulted in the successful closeout of
the projects.
[End of section]
Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security:
U.S. Department of Homeland Security:
Washington, DC 20528:
July 22, 2009:
Stanley J. Czerwinski:
Director:
Strategic Issues Team:
U.S. Accountability Office:
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Czerwinski:
Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the Government
Accountability Office's (GAO's) Draft Report GAO-09-811 entitled,
"Disaster Recovery: Experiences from Past Disasters Offer Insights for
Effective Collaboration after Catastrophic Events."
Recommendation: "To improve the ability of the federal government to
capture and disseminate recovery information, we recommend that the
Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Administrator of FEMA to
establish a mechanism for sharing information and best practices
focused on disaster recovery, including practices that promote
effective collaboration such as those discussed in this report. Options
for doing this could include (1) creating an approach, similar to the
LLIS Web site or the mitigation best practices portfolio, through which
disaster recovery lessons can be compiled and shared, and personal
networks among interested recovery officials encouraged; and/or (2)
modifying the LLIS Web site to add a focus on recovery by taking steps
such as including more recovery documents, creating a recovery topic
area within LLIS, and creating an online directory for recovery
officials to encourage networking and facilitate further sharing of
recovery experiences."
Response: Concur. FEMA concurs with the recommendation outlined in the
report and will continue to work with our partners to identify, and
establish as needed, an appropriate information sharing mechanism that
will improve the ability of the federal government to capture and
disseminate recovery information. FEMA will evaluate all options that
will promote and improve effective collaboration processes, including
those suggested by GAO.
Thank you again for the opportunity to comment on this Draft Report and
we look forward to working with you on future homeland security issues.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Jacqueline L. Lacasse, for:
Jerald F. Levine:
Director:
Departmental GAO/0IG Liaison Office:
[End of section]
Appendix VIII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Stanley J. Czerwinski, Director, Strategic Issues Team, (202) 512-6808
or CzerwinskiS@gao.gov.
Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, Peter Del Toro, Assistant
Director, and Shirley Hwang were the major contributors to this report.
Additionally, Patrick Breiding, Keya Chateauneuf, Christopher Harm,
Donna Miller, and Diana Zinkl also made key contributions.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] "The 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes" refers to Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita, which struck the Gulf Coast in August and September of 2005,
respectively. For the purposes of this report, they are treated
collectively as a single disaster event. When "the Gulf Coast
hurricanes" is used, the term also includes Hurricanes Ike and Gustav,
which struck the Gulf Coast in September 2008.
[2] U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, S. Rept. 109-322
(Washington, D.C.: May 2006); U.S. House of Representatives Select
Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to
Hurricane Katrina, A Failure of Initiative, (Washington, D.C.: February
2006); White House Homeland Security Council, The Federal Response to
Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, (Washington, D.C.: February 2006);
and GAO, Catastrophic Disasters: Enhanced Leadership, Capabilities, and
Accountability Controls Will Improve the Effectiveness of the Nation's
Preparedness, Response, and Recovery System, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-618] (Washington, D.C.: September
2006).
[3] For example, see GAO, Disaster Recovery: FEMA's Public Assistance
Grant Program Experienced Challenges with Gulf Coast Rebuilding,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-129] (Washington, D.C.:
December 2008).
[4] GAO, Disaster Recovery: Past Experiences Offer Insights for
Recovering from Hurricanes Ike and Gustav and Other Recent Natural
Disasters, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1120]
(Washington, D.C.: September 2008). The Federal Emergency Management
Agency classifies an event where related federal costs reach or exceed
$500 million as "catastrophic." Under this definition, all the past
disasters we reviewed qualify as catastrophic.
[5] Short-term recovery includes actions such as providing essential
public health and safety services, restoring interrupted utility and
other essential services, reestablishing transportation routes, and
providing food and shelter for those displaced by the incident.
Although called short-term, some of these activities may last for
weeks.
[6] Some examples of long-term recovery include providing permanent
disaster-resistant housing units to replace those destroyed, initiating
a low-interest façade loan program for the portion of the downtown area
that sustained damage from the disaster, and initiating a buyout of
flood-prone properties and designating them community open space.
[7] Federal agencies and types of federal assistance differ from
disaster to disaster. As such, not all the federal agencies we discuss
are appropriated funds to provide assistance in all domestic disasters.
[8] The Department of Homeland Security's National Response Framework,
issued in final form in January 2008, is a guide for how the federal,
state, local, and tribal governments, along with nongovernmental and
private sector entities, will collectively respond to and recover from
all disasters regardless of their cause. The framework recognized the
need for collaboration among the myriad of entities and personnel
involved in response efforts at all levels of government, nonprofit
organizations, and the private sector. While the Emergency Support
Function #14 is included in this guide, the National Response Framework
indicates that long-term community recovery is outside its scope.
[9] GAO, Results Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance
and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] (Washington, D.C.: October
2005).
[10] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15].
[11] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15].
[12] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1120].
[13] In the Japanese governmental system, a prefecture is an
administrative district about the size of a county.
[14] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15].
[15] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1120].
[16] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15].
[17] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1120].
[18] Governor's Office of Emergency Services, San Francisco Bay Area
Regional Emergency Coordination Plan RECP Recovery Subsidiary Plan,
(San Francisco, Calif: March 2008), [hyperlink,
http://www.oes.ca.gov/WebPage/oeswebsite.nsf/Content/F39818FB706ECED6882
5743D00738C6A?OpenDocument], accessed on July 29, 2009.
[19] According to an official involved in the development of the
Regional Emergency Coordination Plan, Bay Area state and local
governments used $2.5 million in funds from the Department of Homeland
Security's Urban Area Security Initiative Grant (typically used for
preparedness and response activities) to develop its pre-disaster
recovery plan.
[20] GAO, Gulf Coast Rebuilding: Observations on Federal Financial
Implications, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1079T]
(Washington, D.C.: Aug. 2, 2007) and GAO-09-129.
[21] Palm Beach County Division of Emergency Management, Countywide
Post-Disaster Redevelopment Plan, Palm Beach County, Florida, (West
Palm Beach, FL: August 2006), [hyperlink,
http://www.pbcgov.com/publicsafety/emergencymanagement/resources/pdf/pdr
p_AUG_06.pdf], accessed on July 29, 2009.
[22] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1120].
[23] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15].
[24] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1120].
[25] For example, according to the Lessons Learned Information Sharing
(LLIS) system project manager, applications from individuals with a
".gov" or ".us" Email address are approved immediately. However,
applications from other types of Email addresses need to be affiliated
with a recognized domestic organization and demonstrate a "need to
know" in order to obtain access to LLIS. According to a FEMA official,
the agency is working to provide limited LLIS access to international
members.
[26] As of July 2009, LLIS had over 51,000 active registered members.
[27] GAO, Results Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance
and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] (Washington, D.C.: October
2005).
[28] GAO has previously reported on regional coordination in the
context of emergency preparedness, see GAO, Homeland Security:
Effective Regional Coordination Can Enhance Emergency Preparedness,
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-1009] (Washington, D.C.:
September 2004).
[29] The major industries in the city of Santa Cruz, located about 74
miles south of San Francisco, include agriculture, tourism,
manufacturing, food processing, and high-tech firms. The population in
1990 was approximately 49,000.
[30] Watsonville is located about 20 miles from Santa Cruz and close to
the epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Agriculture and food
processing are the main industries in Watsonville. The population in
1990 was approximately 31,000.
[31] GAO, Los Angeles Earthquake: Opinions of Officials on Federal
Impediments to Rebuilding, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/RCED-94-193] (Washington, D.C.: June
17, 1994).
[32] In the Japanese governmental system, a prefecture is an
administrative district about the size of a county.
[End of section]
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