What is the Draft National Disaster Recovery Framework?

On February 5, 2010, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued the first draft of its brand-new National Disaster Recovery Framework, intended, after vetting and revisions that have now begun, to accompany the National Response Framework, which itself first went live on March 22, 2008. (1-3) The official National Disaster Recovery Framework document is scheduled for release around June 1, 2010.

The new DHS draft document has retained the word “Framework” in its title, rather than the word “Plan” used in the DHS National Response Plan (NRP), which preceded (July 2004) the DHS National Response Framework (2008). (4) 

In October 2009, U.S. President Obama requested that the Secretaries of the Departments of Homeland Security and Housing and Urban Development (Janet Napolitano and Shaun Donovan, respectively) co-chair a White House Long-Term Disaster Recovery Working Group composed of the Secretaries and Administrators of more than 20 departments, agencies and offices. (4) The President gave formal responsibility for this work group to the Secretary of Homeland Security, not to the Administrator of FEMA. The purpose of the work group was to lead a “high-level, strategic initiative” to “provide operational guidance for recovery organizations as well as make suggestions for future improvement.” (5)

During the first day of a two-day tour of Gulf Coast recovery efforts, U.S. Congressman Joseph Cao, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, SUNO Chancellor Victor Ukpolo, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu get a glimpse of Southern University of New Orleans on Wednesday. The university was heavily damaged during Hurricane Katrina. Behind Napolitano is Governor Bobby Jindal.” Source: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/napolitano_donovan_announce_mi.html; accessed February 7, 2010.

The Long-Term Disaster Recovery Group undertook an intensive stakeholder outreach effort during October and November 2009, via “meetings and briefings, online engagement, and a series of video teleconferences and stakeholder forums in five key cities” (Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, New York City, New Orleans, and Memphis, Tennessee). (6-7)

Questions asked of the stakeholders, according to the Long-Term Disaster Recovery Group website, were:

• “How would you define a successful disaster recovery?
• Are there clear phases in the disaster recovery process that are useful milestones?
• What features of Federal disaster recovery assistance are most important to you?
• How would you measure progress and what specific metrics should be considered for a successful disaster recovery?
• What are best practices in managing recovery from disasters?
• What are the appropriate state, local, and tribal, roles in leading disaster recovery efforts?
• How can the nonprofit and private sectors be better integrated into recovery?
• What are best practices for community recovery planning that incorporates public input?
• How can federal, state, and local disaster planning and recovery processes and programs be best coordinated?
• As disaster recovery is primarily a state and local leadership issue, what are best practices for the timing (including start and end) and form of federal assistance and coordination?
• What are the greatest capacity challenges that local and state governments face in disaster recovery and what are the best practices for increasing that capacity?
• What are best practices for marshaling Federal assistance -- both financial and professional support - to support state and local efforts to recover from a disaster, and how can we work together to better leverage existing Federal grant dollars?
• What unmet needs are common to most disasters that do not seem to be adequately addressed under the current systems and programs?
• What are best practices for integrating economic and environmental sustainability into recovery?
• What are best practices for integrating mitigation and resilience into recovery?
• What else would you like us to know?” (5)

1. Draft National Disaster Recovery Framework Target Audience and Content Matter

The draft National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF) views the process of disaster recovery primarily from the government’s perspective. (8) Indeed, “The Recovery Framework is addressed to senior leaders, such as mayors, other local officials, state governors and other state officials, tribal leaders, and federal department or agency executives—those who have authority, responsibility, and equities in disaster recovery,” avers the document. (9)

The draft NDRF uses the 2008 National Response Framework as a template, co-opting the latter’s concepts and terms, with two exceptions:

• The draft National Disaster Recovery Framework replaces the National Response Framework’s Federal Coordinating Officer (FCO) and State Coordinating Officer (SCO) roles with brand new Federal Recovery Coordinator (FRC) and State Recovery Coordinator (SRC) positions. The new FRC and SRC positions will exist to “provide cohesion and focus to the recovery efforts.” These new federal and state government employees will “ensure that all who have the capability to support community recoveries are actively engaged in a well coordinated way.” (8)
• The draft NDRF replaces the NRF’s 15 Emergency Support Function (ESF) Annexes with 6 Recovery Support Functions (RSF). (8)

Recall that the National Response Framework’s #14 Emergency Support Function is “Long-Term Community Recovery.” (10) Thus, the draft National Disaster Recovery Framework “incorporates and expands on the key elements of the NRF, ESF #14, Long-Term Community Recovery, adding leadership elements, organizational structure, planning guidance and other components needed to coordinate continued recovery support to individuals, businesses and community. The NDRF also aligns with the NIPP [National Infrastructure Protection Plan], which provides a unified national framework [to improve] the resilience and protection of the nation’s critical infrastructure.” (11)

The NDRF conceptualizes a “recovery continuum,” which optimally begins before a disaster strikes. “Post disaster recovery activities begin in the early stages of the response operations and may last for years. Actions that help recovery…should be built into the steady state operations of governments at all levels.” (12)

That said, the NDRF “focuses on intermediate and long-term activities and distinguishes these from response and stabilization activities. [It] does not speak to response operations [such as] “life-saving, life-sustaining, property protection actions and other measures intended to neutralize the immediate threat to life and property.” (12) (Emphasis added)

Recovery specialists begin their work—intermediate recovery activities and then long-term recovery--only after the disaster situation has been stabilized, meaning afflicted people have shelter, food, water, health services, and security, and debris removal, the restarting of transportation systems, and many other tasks are well underway. (12)

Intermediate recovery activities involve moving a community to its new normalcy, including, for example, providing case management, overseeing the returning of displaced populations and businesses, developing a post disaster recovery prioritization and planning process, and developing initial hazard mitigation strategies responsive to the needs created by the disaster. (13)

Long-term recovery, which follows intermediate recovery in the recovery continuum, involves “the complete redevelopment and revitalization of the damaged area. It is the process of rebuilding or relocating damaged or destroyed social, economic, natural, and built environments in a community to conditions set in a long-term recovery plan.” Activities of long-term recovery include developing a long term recovery plan, rebuilding to “appropriate resilience standards in recognition of hazards and threats,” relocating permanent facilities, as needed, and “reconfiguring elements of the community in light of changed needs and opportunities for ‘smart planning’ to increase energy efficiency, enhance business and job diversity, and promote the preservation of natural resources.” (14)

The goal underlying long-term redevelopment is the impacted community moving toward self-sufficiency, sustainability, and resilience.” (13)

2. Eight Core Principles of the NDRF and Federal Guidelines for Recovery Operations

The eight core principles that guide the NDRF are individual and family empowerment, leadership and local primacy, preparation for recovery, partnership and inclusiveness, communications, unity of effort, timeliness and flexibility, and resilience and stability. (15) Highlights of these principles are

• Governmental entities need to be compassionate and respectful of afflicted people as “recovery is not only about restoration of structures, systems and services,” but also “about individuals and families” struggling to adjust to their new realities.
• Local governments, not the state or federal governments, have primary responsibility for the recovery of their communities.
• Afflicted communities need timely and flexible assistance, with minimization of delays.
• Redevelopment needs to strengthen the community’s ability to withstand and recover from future disasters. (15)

The federal government notes the need to:

• Deploy a Federal Recovery Coordinator when appropriate and establish recovery coordination structure in close collaboration with affected state, tribal, and local governments.
• Provide technical and financial assistance with clarity and efficiency, consistent with existing authorities, tribes, local and state governments, and the private sector.
• Adhere to the principle that the federal government is to support and supplement, not substitute or supplant local and state leadership. (16)
3. Federal Recovery Coordinator Responsibilities Listed

The Federal Recovery Coordinator will have a long list of responsibilities, including coordinating federal assistance to support community recovery planning; managing Recovery Support Function deployments, operations, and activities; facilitating federal funding streams; and promoting inclusiveness in recovery, among other responsibilities. (17) The NDRF also lists responsibilities for other recovery phase positions. (17)

4. Recovery Support Functions (RSF)

The new RSF structure “coexists and complements the Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) familiar to many readers in the National Response Framework. However, the RSFs of the National Disaster Recovery Framework are different from the ESFs of the National Response Framework, in that:”

• “Different players are involved,” e.g., the Environmental Protection Agency staff active in the RSFs do not from HAZMAT, but come from smart growth and watershed planning. There is no ESF for economic development or for rebuilding the workforce for schools and hospitals. (18)
• “Different partners are needed,” meaning the RSFs involve partners in the local, state and tribal governments, and private and non-profit sectors, which are not typically involved in emergency support functions, but are needed during recovery. “These new partners may include public and private organizations that deal with permanent housing financing, economic development, and long-term community planning.” (18)
• “Different approach is needed,” meaning the “process used for facilitating recovery needs to be more exploratory and collaborative in approach, rather than the direct and task approach under the Incident-Command-System-based ESF system.” (18)
• “Different time span,” meaning “whereas the ESFs typically operate within a time span of weeks, the RSFs are likely to remain active for months…In the early weeks after a large-scale or catastrophic disaster, both ESFs and RSFs will be activated. As the response resources demobilize, ESFs will demobilize at varying points; whereas the RSFs will ramp up and transition from impact assessment and operational planning activities to more direct support.” (18)

Oversight of the following six Recovery Support Functions is the task of the Federal Recovery Coordinator, according to the draft NDRF:

• Community planning and capacity building;
• Economic development;
• Health, social and community services;
• Housing;
• Infrastructure systems; and
• Natural and cultural resources. (19)

Each of these six RSFs has an RSF coordinator who coordinates primary and support agencies pertinent to his or her functional area. An RSF primary agency is “a federal agency with significant authorities, roles, resources, or capabilities for a particular function within an RSF. Primary agencies orchestrate federal support within their functional area.” Support agencies are “entities with specific capabilities or resources that support the primary agency.” (19)

For example, the very important community planning and capacity building RSF tasks the RSF coordinator and primary agencies (DHS/FEMA, HUD, and USDA) with working with local and state authorities to open schools, courts, law enforcement and fire stations, and taxation and governmental financing systems, says the draft NDRF. (20)

5. The Long-term Neglect of Long-Term Recovery Research

Long-term disaster recovery is the most neglected component of emergency management practice, says emergency management author Claire Rubin in a 2009 paper published in the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, available elsewhere. (21)

Rubin writes the following about the neglect research on long-term recovery from disasters, from the emergency practitioner’s professional viewpoint:

I am not clear on the specifics of why that neglect has occurred, particularly given the importance of the topic, but I have some thoughts about the matter to share. Presently I am very concerned about the LTR [long-term recovery] research field because I think that the amount and quality of research is not adequate for our present needs; I think there are very serious deficiencies in basic and applied research on the topic, and that means a weak foundation exists for current and future recovery planning and implementation.

In my view, the progression of research and knowledge about long-term recovery has moved in fits and starts during the past 25 years. This lack of consistent progress in improving the knowledge base contributes directly to the very serious lack of knowledge acquisition, utilization, and institutionalization in professional practice. (22)

Disaster researchers (sociologists) Gavin P. Smith and Dennis Wenger wrote in 2006, “Disaster recovery represents the least understood aspect of emergency management, from the standpoint of both the research communities and the practitioners.” (23)

However, anthropologists such as Anthony Oliver-Smith and Susanna M. Hoffman have long embraced the anthropology of disaster in their stimulating books, which include The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective (1999), Culture and Catastrophe: The Anthropology of Disaster (2002), Disasters and Forced Migration in the 21st Century (2006), and Defying Displacement: Grassroots Resistance and the Critique of Development (2010). (24-28)

Disaster historian Greg Bankoff has also written fine books such as Cultures of Disaster: Society and Natural Hazard in the Philippines (2002), which sharply analyze the phenomenon of long-term recovery. (29) He writes, “In a disaster culture, people have ‘come to terms with hazard in such a way that disasters are not regarded as abnormal situations but as quite the reverse, as a constant feature of life.’ Bankoff condemns the neglect of the historical aspect of disasters at the hands of ‘western social scientists [who] largely approach the study of disasters from three disciplinary perspectives, geography, sociology and anthropology.” (29)

Disaster anthropologists and historians who have spent their entire professional lives trying to understand what happens to societies and cultures after disasters can offer important perspective to the National Disaster Recovery  Framework, if they have not already done so.

6. Summary

The U.S. National Disaster Recovery Framework is an important step forward in understanding and servicing the needs of disaster-surviving populations, societies and cultures.

Notes:

1. The February 5, 2010 draft of the National Disaster Recovery Framework is available at http://disasterrecoveryworkinggroup.gov/ndrf.pdf; accessed February 7, 2010.
2. SEMP Biot Report #472: “What is the new National Response Framework?” October 21, 2007. Available at http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=472; accessed February 7, 2010.
3. SEMP Biot Report #508: “The National Response Framework goes live.” March 29, 2008. Available at http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=508; accessed February 7, 2010.
4. SEMP Biot Report #103: “National Response Plan begins to go live.” July 13, 2004. Available at http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=103; accessed February 7, 2010.
5. The website of FEMA’s Long-Term Disaster Recovery Working Groups is available at http://disasterrecoveryworkinggroup.gov/; accessed February 7, 2010.  
6. FEMA Advisory: “FEMA releases draft National Disaster Recovery Framework.” February 5, 2010. Available at http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=50366; accessed February 7, 2010.
7. “Statements by DHS Secretary Napolitano and HUD Secretary Donovan on today’s Long-Terms Recovery Stakeholder Forum in Memphis.” November 19, 2009. Available at http://disasterrecoveryworkinggroup.gov/releases/pr2009-11-23.cfm; accessed February 7, 2010.
8. Draft National Disaster Recovery Framework, p. 5. Available at http://disasterrecoveryworkinggroup.gov/ndrf.pdf; accessed February 7, 2010.
9. Ibid, p. 7.
10. “Emergency Support Function #14—Long-Term Community Recovery Annex.” In National Response Framework, 2008. Available at http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/nrf-esf-14.pdf; accessed February 7, 2010.
11. Draft National Disaster Recovery Framework, p. 6. Available at http://disasterrecoveryworkinggroup.gov/ndrf.pdf; accessed February 7, 2010.
12. Ibid, p. 9.
13. Ibid, p. 10.
14. Ibid, pp. 10-11.
15. Ibid, pp. 12-13.
16. Ibid, pp. 25-26.
17. Ibid, p. 32.
18. Ibid, p. 35.
19. Ibid, p. 37.
20. Ibid, p. 38.
21. Claire Rubin: “Long term recovery from disasters—the neglected component of emergency management.” Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2009, Article 46. This paper has an excellent bibliography on long-term recovery. Available at http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1616&context=jhsem; accessed February 6, 2010.
22. Claire Rubin: “Long term recovery from disasters—the neglected component of emergency management.” Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2009, Article 46, p. 2.
23. Gavin P. Smith and Dennis Wenger “Chapter 14: Sustainable Disaster Recovery: Operationalizing an Existing Agenda.” In Handbook of Disaster Research, edited by H. Rodriguez, E.L. Quarantelli, and R. Dynes. New York: Springer, 2006, pp. 234-274.
24. Anthony Oliver-Smith: Disasters and Forced Migration in the 21st Century. 2006 Available at http://understandingkatrina.ssrc.org/Oliver-Smith/; accessed February 6, 2010.
25. Stanley Hyland (Ed.): Community Building in the Twenty-First Century. SAR Press, 2005.
26. Susanna Hoffman and Anthony Oliver-Smith: Catastrophe and Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster. School for Advanced Research Press, 2002.
27. Anthony Oliver-Smith: The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective. London: Routledge, 1999.
28. Anthony Oliver-Smith: Defying Displacement: Grassroots Resistance and the Critique of Development. University of Texas Press, 2010.
29. Greg Bankoff: Cultures of Disaster: Society and Natural Hazard in the Philippines. London: Routledge, 2002, p. 153.
30. “Book review: Culture of Disasters.” Securitas Magazine, Jun/Jul 2004, Volume 3, Issue 4. Available at http://www.semp.us/publications/securitas_reader.php?SecuritasID=16; accessed February 7, 2010.