MONDAY, AUGUST 31, 2009

Planning post-evacuation and sheltering is needed in Louisiana

By: Dr. Monteic A. Sizer
President and CEO, Louisiana Family Recovery Corps

We are better prepared, but we are certainly not ready. Not for another catastrophic disaster.

That is a harrowing thought more than four years after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina in southeastern Louisiana.

Certainly the state of Louisiana has better positioned itself during the past four years to mitigate some of the damage that another catastrophic storm could bring our way. Under the leadership of Governor Bobby Jindal, the state’s Get a Game Plan strategy has better prepared Louisianians for emergency sheltering and evacuation, as proven just less than a year ago when Hurricanes Gustav and Ike rushed ashore. Additionally, the work of Paul Rainwater at the Louisiana Recovery Authority, Kristy Nichols at the Department of Social Services, and Mark Cooper of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness has helped to further the rebuilding of the state during these tough times.

But for all of the good that has been accomplished, all of the billions of dollars that have been spent, all of the millions of volunteer man-hours that have been worked, it could all be for naught if Mother Nature once again lines up a knockout punch for our state.

As Louisianians, we are vulnerable. As Americans, we are vulnerable. Not only because of the location in which we choose to build our homes or the lingering affects of four major hurricanes in three years. We are vulnerable because there is no plan to provide for the long-term recovery, reassimilation, stability, and prosperity of the citizens of our state post-evacuation and sheltering following a catastrophic event.

But we are not alone. Despite all of the disasters that have shaken the collective will of our country – hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, terrorist attacks, market crashes – the United States has no plan for the long-term recovery of its people post-disaster.

This lack of an operational plan to ensure the long-term recovery of disaster survivors is unconscionable, for what are we if we are not a land of people who deserve excellent execution during times of great need?

There are long-term strategies in place at the federal, state, and local levels for the rebuilding of communities. But what good are these strategies if they are not coordinated and intentionally leveraged to produce long-term positive outcomes for those communities? What good are rebuilt communities if the people are unable to come back home? What good are rehabilitated neighborhoods if families are still broken? And what good is new infrastructure if there is no workforce to maintain it?

For sure there has been no heartless conspiracy construed to force families and individuals to face chaos, despair, and tumult in the wake of catastrophic disasters. But by continuing to push forth without real attempts to implement a comprehensive long-term human recovery plan that is coordinated at the local, state, and federal levels, that is essentially what we are allowing to have happen.

The Louisiana Family Recovery Corps has been a key player in the movement for the development of such plans at both the state and federal levels and continues with those efforts as we keep one eye always trained on the choppy, warm Gulf waters.

During the recent Legislative session we lobbied state lawmakers in an effort to raise their awareness as to the need for such a long-term strategy. We worked with the Governor’s Office of Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security to alert it as to the need to add such a long-term human recovery plan to the state’s Emergency Operations Plan. As a way to initiate the process, the Recovery Corps signed on to the state’s EOP to provide support roles in Emergency Support Function 6 (mass care, emergency assistance, housing, and human services) and Emergency Support Function 14 (long-term community recovery). Additionally, the Recovery Corps provided GOHSEP with the basic tenants of what a long-term human recovery plan would look like.

Nationally, working with fellow sub-committee members of the National Commission on Children and Families, the Recovery Corps outlined those same tenants, along with many additional recommendations, many of which will be taken to the Obama Administration and Congress as first steps to a national long-term human recovery plan.

The process is not difficult, but it involves strategic alignment, sharing of critical information, and coordinated communication among government, the non-profit sector, and the private sector. No longer can states be allowed to receive federal disaster-related funds and simply push them to agencies and non-profit organizations with no accountabilities or expected outcomes. Further, no longer can the non-profit sector continue to exist as a fragmented, disjointed group of individual organizations, especially in times of dire need post-disaster.

If everything remains the same, the people of Louisiana and the nation will continue to get what they have always gotten.

Instead, should the various levels of government be able to coordinate services and resources in the wake of disaster and a coordinated non-profit sector be able to neatly be plugged in, waste will be vastly reduced, if not eliminated. Federal human service recovery funds will quickly reach their intended targets and have their intended impacts. And the non-profit sector will be able to provide services and distribute resources in an efficient and effective manner with a much better return on investment than could a large bureaucratic governmental system provide, thus allowing government to further focus on the tasks it performs best.

Now is the time for Louisiana to step up. We have become experts in understanding the devastating impacts catastrophic disasters can have on families and individuals. It should be everyone’s goal that, by the time the fifth anniversary of Katrina rolls around, we will have implemented a strong, coordinated plan that ensures a quick, lasting recovery for our people.

That is something we all deserve.

Dr. Monteic A. Sizer is President and CEO of the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps. For more information about the Recovery Corps, visit www.recoverycorps.org.

.