Think not only of the natural disasters suffered within the U.S. each year, but around the world. Then imagine finding between 400 and 500 of the most experienced experts in the various fields related to research and practice on natural disasters and bringing them together in the same space for three days. These would include emergency managers, urban planners, social and physical scientists, government policy makers, geographers, architects, and engineers, among others. Finally, imagine instigating wide-ranging discussions among all these folks, getting them to talk to each other and explore interdisciplinary solutions to the numerous problems posed to humanity by natural hazards. Imagine the richness and creativity of the conversations that would follow.
For about 20 years, with a few intermissions, I have had the privilege of attending precisely such an event every summer in Colorado, hosted by the Natural Hazards Center of the University of Colorado. This event was initiated in 1976 by the late Professor Gilbert F. White, who launched the Center that long ago with help from the National Science Foundation. Dr. White is known today as the father of modern floodplain management, and is famous for saying, “Floods are acts of nature; flood losses are largely acts of man.” After his death in 2006 at age 94, his life was memorialized in a biography by Robert E. Hinshaw, Living With Nature’s Extremes: The Life of Gilbert Fowler White. It is worth reading because it relates the saga of a man who managed over the course of a long career to bend the needle of history without taking himself too seriously in the process. He was more interested in knowing whether his many achievements, such as helping to engineer the creation of the National Flood Insurance Program way back in 1968, were actually making the difference he thought they should make. He had not the slightest interest in idle congratulations or in the hazards professional community sitting on its collective laurels. The question was always what lay ahead.
And so this summer we met for the 38th annual Natural Hazards Workshop in Broomfield, Colorado, with attendees not only from the U.S., but according to Center director Kathleen Tierney in her opening remarks, from 31 other nations as well. For the first time in several years, I did not actually speak in any sessions, although I did speak on a plenary panel for the Natural Hazard Mitigation Association, which sponsored a one-day event added on at the end of the Workshop. I had to follow Margaret Davidson, director of the Coastal Services Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and David Miller, director of FEMA’s Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration, which oversees the NFIP and thus is responsible to some extent for implementing Gilbert’s vision. Both are tough acts to follow. I spent a notoriously quick ten minutes describing the American Planning Association’s work on a FEMA-supported project to publish a second-generation version of our 1998 publication, Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction. It was no easy task, but I knew that many people at the conference are anxiously awaiting the completion of APA’s work, slated for early next year.
Photo credit: NHMA
This year, APA took advantage of all this creative flow by allowing me to bring our Interactive Media Coordinator, Mike Johnson, to help videotape a series of interviews with both U.S. and international participants. You can watch those on the Recovery News blog, where we will roll them out in coming weeks. I hope it provides some sample of the activity of the conference. I also invite you to use all the links in this post to explore the rest of what went on, as best as can be done vicariously.
Jim Schwab