There is an urgent need to reimagine disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery strategies in the US, as intensifying climate and weather hazards cause successive and compounding natural disasters that current practices cannot cope with, says a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The report examines the experiences of the Gulf Coast in 2020 and 2021 as it underwent successive 'billion-dollar disasters'. These storms, some arriving in the same region within weeks of one another, occurred while communities were also coping with the Covid-19 pandemic.

For many Gulf communities, the report says, the effects of these disasters compounded, increasing vulnerabilities, weakening response capacity, and further reducing the ability to withstand the effects of subsequent events.

Comprehensive new strategies

Compounding disasters that introduce new, interconnected, and complex risk scenarios are expected to increase in frequency and will require comprehensive new strategies for emergency planning and response.

Disasters that have impacted the Gulf in recent years cannot be examined in isolation from prior disasters, as many communities are in some state of long-term recovery from the physical and socioeconomic impacts of past events such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster and hurricanes Gustav, Harvey, Ike, and Katrina.

Effective disaster recovery will require shifting from an 'event' view to an 'epoch' view, in order to more fully address the prolonged effects of disasters, and to reflect the reality experienced in communities, the report says.

“For too long, America responded to disasters as singular, isolated events,” said Roy Wright, chair of the committee that authored the report and president and CEO of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety.

“Individual disasters do not occur in isolation amid a community’s history. With each successive punch of overlapping disaster recoveries, the vulnerabilities increase. This heightens the risk that the next event could provide a knock-out blow. These are compounding disasters.”

Additionally, much of the Gulf region’s population experience the impacts of compounding disasters alongside other hazards and vulnerabilities that are often rooted in historic, systemic, and structural discrimination.

Examples of these include underinvestment in infrastructure and housing, persistent poverty, and land-use planning decisions that have marginalised people and placed them in harm’s way.

Such circumstances further constrain the ability of residents to recovery fully from disasters, while increasing their sensitivity to the effects of climate change and extreme events. The report finds that as a result, perpetual disaster recovery is an enduring reality for many living in the Gulf region.

The report highlights the importance of the interconnected and interdependent systems critical to societal functioning, and calls attention to the connections and feedback loops that can amplify the negative impacts of disasters.

Risk and emergency communications infrastructure

This systems-oriented approach points to the need to bolster key pillars of communities’ ability to respond to extreme events, including public health, mental health, and community-based organisations, risk and emergency communications infrastructure, and access to safe, sanitary, and secure housing.

Strategies aimed at strengthening these pillars can increase the adaptive capacity of vulnerable and exposed communities so that disaster effects are less likely to compound.

The report finds that the ability to successfully manage disaster risk and plan for future events is constrained by cognitive biases that do not extend beyond what has been experienced or what is perceived to be the benchmark extreme.

These biases are reflected in emergency management protocols, land-use planning and plans, zoning regulations, public utility design, and building codes, which are often grounded in historical precedent. Given a changing climate, this backward-looking vantage is unlikely to be representative of future hazard risks.

“The years 2020 and 2021 were devastating for the Gulf Coast region,” said Lauren Alexander Augustine, executive director of the Gulf Research Program, which funded the study. “Our best science tells us that this likely wasn’t a fluke, and we need to draw upon the lessons and experiences of those years to position ourselves to build a strong foundation fitting the new normal of disasters that the 21st century will bring.”

Among the report’s other conclusions:

• Pervasive mental health impacts of compounding disasters undermine the adaptive capacity of communities to withstand and effectively recover from disruptive events;
• Health care and public health systems require increased adaptive capacity and staffing to respond to the diverse challenges of compounding disasters;
• The heavy dependence on community-based organisations for disaster relief and recovery can strain these individuals and groups beyond the point of effectiveness in the face of compounding disasters;
• Technology, though a powerful tool for delivering services in times of crisis, is not a universal substitute for interpersonal communication and in-person disaster recovery assistance;
• Stronger mechanisms are essential to translate prior experience into lessons learnt and implemented;
• Revisions to disaster planning, response, and recovery policies and procedures need to directly address and eliminate the uneven access to resources that can exacerbate social and economic inequities in the wake of disasters.

The study – undertaken by the Compounding Disasters in Gulf Coast Communities, 2020-2021: Impacts, Findings, and Lessons Learned Consensus Study Committee – was sponsored by the Gulf Research Program, a science-based program founded in 2013 at the National Academies as part of legal settlements with the companies involved in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

It seeks to enhance offshore energy system safety and protect human health and the environment by catalysing advances in science, practice, and capacity to generate long-term benefits for the Gulf of Mexico region and the nation.