Reconstruction and Opportunity

As a Natural Disaster Recovery professional, I will be following with interest the reconstruction efforts in Haiti. My sincere hope is that those leading the effort will take a holistic view to this mammoth task. By this I mean to really succeed at the fourth tier of Emergency Management you must not only reconstruct what was lost, but you most take advantage of the opportunities presented by disaster.


The list of holistic activities is vast and limited only by the courage and leadership present in the effort. But is must include concepts such as established and enforceable building codes, depopulating hazard prone regions, relocating or redirecting transportation routes and nodes from hazards for example. In the end all investment in recovery should have as an underlying objective the goal to increase society wide resiliency.


This practical, reconstruction focused concept of holistic recovery could and should be coupled with a view that reinvesting the vast sums of money into replacing only what is lost is throwing good money away.


I and I am sure thousands of others hope that despite this tragedy, Haiti will be more resilient as a result of this reinvestment.