Acting in Time Disaster Response and Recovery Project

 

Launched by Harvard Kennedy School Dean David T. Ellwood, the Acting in Time research initiative examines why certain public problems are not being addressed – even though their potential consequences are great – and seeks to identify ways in which communities and government can address these problems in a more effective and timely manner.

 

The disaster management component of the Acting in Time initiative examines how we can better deal with landscape scale disasters, that is, events in which destruction spreads farther than the eye can see: the 2004 South Asia tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, for instance, or the Sichuan earthquake and Cyclone Nargis, both in 2008.

Typical of the Acting in Time problem, there is often a widespread feeling in the aftermath of landscape scale disasters that we could have done more in advance either to reduce their impact or to be ready to deal quickly with their consequences. This research project focuses on two major elements of disaster management – response and recovery – in an effort to identify ways in which we can address such concerns.

 

Disaster Response

Taming the Horsemen of the Modern Apocalypse

 

This project focuses on the challenge of acting in time for responding to the consequences of landscape-scale disasters, primarily those most likely to occur within the United States -- whether naturally occurring  or man-made.

 

Using Hurricane Katrina as a “benchmark,” the project team will consider the likely consequences, in the context of existing state of readiness, of these disasters.  In what ways are they similar – and in what broad spectrum, all-hazards forms of response can we and should we therefore have prepared for them?  To what extent do they differ from one another – and in what ways does that imply that we can and should have prepared for each in specific and idiosyncratic ways?  This will allow us to develop lessons about:

 

(1) What additional preparations for improving response capabilities would be appropriate;
(2) What the barriers to making more adequate preparations appear to have been; and
(3) How those barriers might be overcome.

 

Disaster Recovery

Disaster Recovery Action Research

 

The Harvard Kennedy School Acting in Time Disaster Response research team established an Action Research project to more fully examine how communities can better prepare before a disaster to recover effectively and efficiently in the wake of a landscape-scale disaster.

 

The HKS Acting in Time Disaster Recovery Action Research Project focuses on  

 

(1) identifying the issues that cities face recovering from disaster;

(2) researching best practices in the field of disaster recovery and reconstruction;

(3) making policy recommendations on how cities can best prepare in advance for recovery, and how states and the federal government can make policy changes to support these efforts;

(4) stimulating a "community of practice" around these ideas with working papers and convened online and in-person conferences.

 

Acting in Time Disaster Recovery Action Research Project elements:

 

The City of San Francisco Advance Disaster Recovery Project

 

Advise the Executive Steering Committee of the City and County of San Francisco’s Phoenix 2.0 Project (the development of the disaster “Recovery and Reconstruction Roadmap” for the City)

 

Comparative Examination of Recovery in New Orleans

 

Identify and document dynamics of reconstruction (examining both accelerators and decelerators of recovery) in several areas of New Orleans

 

Convening an Acting in Time Crisis Management and Disaster Recovery "Community of Practice"

Disseminate lessons learned as a means of stimulating discussion and fostering a community of recovery practice

 

For an overview of Acting in Time and details on other Acting in Time research projects please visit http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/admin/offices/dean/ait.