May 2006 · Volume 88 · Number 4

After the Rescue Workers Go Home

by Cory Fleming

The year 2005 was arguably one of the worst in history for communities’ being hit by disasters. From the tsunami in Southeast Asia to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the U.S. Gulf Coast to the earthquake in Pakistan to the wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma, disasters literally and figuratively have destroyed whole communities. The nightly news reports have recorded heartbreak and despair as rescue personnel searched through the rubble.

After a time at any given site, though, the media leave, the rescue workers go home, and the process of rebuilding begins. Proceeding on the long road to recovery is difficult. How does a community pick up the pieces and move forward? How can community leaders restore what was and perhaps make it better than before?

To answer these and other questions, three ICMA members—Sandy Wanner, county administrator of James City County, Virginia; Clay Killian, county administrator of Aiken County, South Carolina; and Wade McKinney, city manager of Atascadero, California—came together to discuss how they saw their communities through disaster and on the road to recovery. The experiences and insights that they gained and that shape this article point out the real value of sharing information with peers and establishing support networks for disaster recovery.

THUMBNAIL SKETCHES OF CRISES

James City County, Virginia

In recent years, James City County has been hit by a series of emergencies and disasters. On December 24, 1998, the area had a major ice storm that left some 98 percent of the county without power. The commonwealth of Virginia declared an emergency, and the county sheltered 30 people during the event. On September 16, 1999, Hurricane Floyd came through Virginia. The event caused a widespread power outage and dropped 14.3 inches of rain. During the storm, up to 95 percent of the county lost power, yet the locality was able to provide shelter for 166 people.

Hurricane Isabel came ashore and struck the area on September 18, 2003. This was a large-scale event that left 900,000 households in the commonwealth without power. In James City County, 100 percent of customers lost power, with some portions of the county remaining without it for up to two weeks. The locality housed 196 people and offered shower facilities for hundreds more.

Aiken County, South Carolina

On January 6, 2005, at approximately 2:40 a.m., two freight trains collided in Graniteville, South Carolina. The collision resulted in a catastrophic release of chlorine gas to the atmosphere from a tank car damaged in the derailment. This release rapidly vaporized to form a dense and highly toxic cloud affecting Graniteville residents and the employees of nearby Avondale Mills.

Other hazardous-materials cars involved in the derailment included two additional chlorine tank cars, one carrying sodium hydroxide, and another hauling creosol. More than 500 people sought medical attention, about 70 were admitted to area hospitals, and nine people were killed by chlorine exposure.

Ultimately, a one-mile radius around the crash site was evacuated, requiring some 5,400 people to leave their homes. Many of these residents, particularly those closest to the crash site, were out of their homes for about a week as the site was stabilized and cleaned.

Atascadero, California

On December 22, 2003, at 11:15 a.m., a 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck the central coast of California. The shallow, but powerful, earthquake uplifted the Santa Lucia Mountains and triggered a vigorous aftershock sequence. Although the epicenter was located just northeast of San Simeon, the most severe damage occurred in and around the cities of Paso Robles and Atascadero.

There were two deaths and 49 reported injuries attributable to the earthquake. More than 40 buildings collapsed or were severely damaged in the quake, and estimated damage to public property exceeded $70 million. FEMA assistance to private property owners and small businesses came to more than $7 million.

WORDS OF EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE

As Sandy Wanner pointed out, the recovery process really begins before a disaster, when communities are developing their emergency preparedness plans. But an actual emergency may bring surprises. In the case of James City County, Virginia, initial recovery efforts during and just after Hurricane Isabel were severely hampered when power, wireless, and telephone lines were taken out. The county’s emergency preparedness plan had not taken into account the possibility of these important communications tools becoming unavailable.

And the county also could not implement its emergency communication plans because they were based on delivering information through the local television stations. Without power, citizens did not have access to these traditional sources of information. Initial recovery simply meant determining a way to restore lines of communication and get information out to local residents.

For approximately two weeks, James City County used runners to post notices on people’s houses and to take messages to and from the field. Beyond reestablishing communication capabilities, Wanner said that compiling reliable damage assessments and restoring critical government services were also crucial in what he defined as the initial, or short-term, recovery phase.

Overall, Wade McKinney suggested that the recovery process is a series of overlapping phases: the short-term, the intermediate, and the long-term. He echoed Wanner’s observations on what happens in the initial, short-term phase after a disaster. During the intermediate phase, McKinney said that local governments need to be concerned with securing the area and getting people back into their houses and businesses.

Long-term recovery, Wade McKinney continued, requires considerable patience and perseverance. It involves rebuilding infrastructure and people’s homes. He reported that it had been about two years since the historic Atascadero City Hall was rendered uninhabitable by the earthquake, and a decision on how to resolve this issue alone is still being debated.

For his part, Clay Killian cautioned that, while evacuations during emergencies may take place fairly quickly, the return process is much slower. The train derailment and chemical spill in Aiken County was a localized event, involving the evacuation of some 5,400 people from within a one-mile radius of the site. Getting that many people back into their homes took significant time. Ensuring the safety of residents must be the top priority, and it takes time to inspect homes, assess damage, and correct problems.

Federal and state assistance for recovery is available, but the logistics involved in securing this assistance can be confusing and frustrating. Requests for assistance are defined at the city and county level, then move to the state, which officially submits community needs to the appropriate federal agency. Communication among local, state, and federal governments, however, does not always go smoothly. A frustrating time lag often occurs between when a request is submitted and when the deliverables are produced. The same is also true in securing such professional services as engineering and site planning.

What can help counteract some of these difficulties, McKinney said, is to seek advice from other entities that have already suffered such emergencies. His local government, for example, ended up speaking with the city of San Francisco and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)—both of whose metropolitan areas had experienced heavy damage in previous earthquakes. McKinney received a tremendous amount of help in determining how Atascadero could best navigate its way through the various federal and state assistance systems.

One of the most surprising aspects of receiving assistance is the sheer amount of effort it takes on the part of the local government. McKinney and Wanner warned that local governments need to be prepared to help set up offices for field workers coming in from federal and state agencies and to provide appropriate security for these personnel. Access to phones, computers, and other office amenities all have to be arranged. And local staff must also supply information on the area to field workers, who have no practical knowledge of sites within the community.

This task often means pulling local staff away from their regular responsibilities and assigning them to help field workers with inspections and other assessment and reconnaissance work. Frequently, routine services must be interrupted to aid disaster recovery staff, for example, when accounting staff go into the field to document loads of debris being taken to local waste facilities.

Killian shared the fact that Aiken County had to coordinate the work of nearly 100 agencies from the local, state, and federal governments after the train derailment and chemical spill. Most agencies were invited to assist, some were not, but no help was turned away. A complicating factor was the need to treat the site as a crime scene because of homeland security concerns.

The FBI and the National Transportation Safety Board had to investigate the site to determine whether there was any possibility of sabotage. Only after this determination had been made could the other agencies continue with their work. An existing mutual-aid agreement for emergency management among the local governments in the area helped coordination efforts run smoothly.

HANDLING THE PAPERWORK

Wanner, Killian, and McKinney all noted the value of the services afforded by such community and nonprofit organizations as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. These groups assumed responsibility for the sheltering and feeding of emergency response personnel. Clay Killian noted that Aiken County received invaluable assistance from a nonprofit organization that ran a 211 system.

The nonprofit functioned as a public information office, answering questions about where and when people could move back into their houses.

For Sandy Wanner, a network of neighborhood groups made a real difference. The James City County Neighborhood Connections office coordinates activities with nearly 125 neighborhood groups that track the services needed for local residents. Wanner notes that the county is providing formal training for these neighborhood groups through the national Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program. The added training will give the community a greater capacity to be self-sufficient in a disaster until assistance can arrive.

In looking back at their experiences, all three professionals wished they had understood the amount of documentation required to receive assistance, which was described as “immense.” James City County, for example, had a tremendous amount of debris that needed to be picked up and hauled to waste facilities. Every truck dumping a load of debris had to be weighed, and the load contents verified, as part of the documentation effort. As a result, every truck had to have a county employee assigned to it to record the haul.

Wade McKinney said that Atascadero’s government was advised to hire someone to handle the paperwork but opted to handle it internally. He wished he had taken the earlier advice. He reported that documentation was a timeconsuming process.

Clay Killian said that his locality learned a lot on the fly during its recovery. GIS mapping operations, for instance, had not originally had a place within Aiken County’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC), but the county quickly learned—with 100 agencies involved, many from outside its boundaries—that maps were particularly helpful in explaining local geography. When a given area was deemed ready for reoccupation, an area map was prepared and distributed to every police car in the jurisdiction to aid in instructing residents.

DETAILS THAT ARE IMPORTANT

Another important issue is dealing with family pets. During the evacuation in Aiken County’s hazmat crisis, people were forced to leave their pets behind because most hotels and emergency shelters did not allow them. When the evacuation and cleanup efforts took longer than many people had anticipated, questions began popping up about what the county was going to do about recovering the animal population.

Ultimately, animal control staff were fitted with safety gear and brought in to retrieve animals. Nearly 300 animals were recovered and brought to a series of staging areas to be reunited with their owners. Clay Killian reported that enabling the owner/pet reunions was among the most rewarding work undertaken during the recovery effort.

Wade McKinney could not stress the importance of communications enough. Phone lines frequently go Coming in down during an emergency, and cellphones can go out. Sandy Wanner echoed this observation, noting that work done with a local AM radio station made a real difference in getting factual, accurate information out to Atascadero residents in a timely fashion.

Wanner sees value in current plans for the Restoration 2006 conference (see information on page 9) because it will enable people to share their experiences and learn from others. “I think it’s a benefit to be able to know that you’re not in this alone, and there are solutions to the problem,” said Wanner. As McKinney commented, “Until you have your disaster, it’s just a planning process you go through. People never think it’s going to happen to them.”

“You never really know when disaster could strike,” said Killian. “With trains and trucks moving hazardous materials all across the country, it [a disaster] could happen anywhere. The opportunity to learn from others and plan for contingencies is critical for being prepared for an emergency.”

Cory Fleming is senior project manager, International City/County Management Association, Westbrook, Maine (cfleming@icma.org).

Steps for Long-Term Disaster Recovery

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