Learning Recovery Lessons

Ike's aftermath, Seawall Boulevard, Galveston. Photograph by Johnny Hanson (Houston Chronicle and AP)

As the Texas Gulf Coast moves from response to recovery, the experience of others confirms that results depend a great deal on political will. New York, New Orleans, and Haiti are each in the midst of recovery efforts. Despite the very different locales, the lessons-learned are similar.

New York mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, , "Progress on the redevelopment of the World Trade Center has been frustratingly slow, owing in large part to a multilayered governance structure that has undermined accountability from the get-go." Early responses suggest the mayor's proposal to reduce layers is unlikely to be quickly adopted.

In a mostly positive June report on Post-Katrina rebuilding US News and World Report nonetheless noted that the New Orleans "Office of Recovery and Development Administration has largely blamed the slow start on funding delays, mostly from the federal government, while state and federal authorities blame local disorganization."

The Financial Services Roundtable (pdf) recovery report gives particular emphasis to the role of intergovernmental coordination. "One of the central lessons learned from Katrina is that multiple decisions prior to a mega-catastrophe and definitely in the aftermath (as well as some even more“routine” disasters) are required by all levels of government – local, state, and federal – since many decisions require the cooperation of all, as well as a means to resolve disputes where they arise. It is vital that these decisions be made expeditiously and that disputes be resolved quickly so that individuals waiting to return and businesses ready to reopen have sufficient certainty that they can make plans. The more rapidly all of this happens, the more quickly the economic and social recovery from any disaster will occur."

Over the last three weeks more than 500 have died in Haiti of storm-related disasters. On Monday, Time Magazine reported, "Haiti's political instability has imperiled efforts at disaster preparation... Two months ago the Family Early Warning Systems Network (composed of USAID, the European Union, FAO and the World Food Program) predicted that nearly half of Haiti's population — or some 4 million people — could face a food crisis by December. And that was before the deluge that flooded the country's breadbasket." Some reports indicate the recent storms have left one million Haitians homeless.

In a Los Angeles Times Sunday op-ed Amy Wilentz comments, "the governments of Haiti, both the dictatorships and the democracies, have done almost nothing to stop deforestation or to protect Haitians from the next big storm. There is no enforced national policy concerning cutting down trees... There is no national or municipal evacuation plan or shelter system."

Jed Horne, New Orleans resident and author of Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City, helpfully reminds us that politics is not just for politicians. "At its most worthwhile and interesting New Orleans has become a laboratory for its own reinvention and perhaps the reinvention of other cities as well. We have made real strides in reshaping government, school system included. We have the opportunity, if we don't blow it, to get health care and public housing right. Our very travail has made New Orleans a magnet for people form all over the country with a sense of adventure and a will to make a difference." (For Horne's complete essay see the September Oxford American.)

While politics is often an easy target for cynics, these three recovery efforts underline what Vaclav Havel once said, "Genuine politics… is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole."