Managing Disasters through Public–Private Partnerships

Preface

xi P r e f a c e In 2010 and 2011 the world watched as an Icelandic volcano brought European airtraveltoastandstill,washorrifiedatthedevastationcausedbytheearthquake in Haiti, and was appalled by the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Japan. Disasters, be they caused by nature or man, occur and invariably affect the United States. The question is not, how can we stop disasters? For the most part, we cannot. The question is, how can we ensure that we are adequately prepared and sufficiently resilient to cope when disaster strikes our home, our neighborhood, or our country? The issues addressed in this book are applicable and directly relevant to a broad range of practitioners in government, the private sector, media, and academia (particularly academics in the fields of public policy and public administration). This book also proposes new ways of approaching disaster management given the global, interconnected world in which we live. The events of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that the US government alone is not equipped to respond to disasters. Most of the physical and virtual networks we rely upon are owned and operated by private corporations . For example, after Katrina it was Walmart, not the government or law enforcement, who was the first responder, providing 2,498 trailers of emergency merchandise and $8.5 million to the relief effort. These crises focused national attention on the importance of cooperation between the government and the private sector and made it no longer a question of whether the private sector had a role to play in national security and disaster management, but a question of what that role should be, and how effective public–private partnerships (PPP) for these purposes could be established. Where once government, military, and law enforcement took full responsibility for disaster mitigation and resiliency, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina made two things apparent. First, private ownership of an estimated 85 percent of US critical infrastructure makes industry a significant stakeholder in critical infrastructure protection for the foreseeable future. Second, during disasters, the private sector demonstrated its constructive use and understanding of global networks, systems, and patterns as a means to enhance the speed of recovery xii • Preface efforts. With these realizations emerged a further awareness that as partners with government, the private sector may be able both to respond to physical events after they occur and to use this knowledge of networks and trade patterns to assist the US government in mitigating the impacts of future events. A decade after 9/11, despite a widespread acknowledgment by both sectors that public–private collaborations for these purposes would be beneficial, significant barriers to cooperation persist that have limited their effectiveness on a federal level. This book attempts to assess disaster-oriented PPPs through December 2011 and aims to understand why these collaborations have proven so difficult and to determine whether they can be built to last. Managing Disasters through Public–Private Partnerships ultimately argues that change is possible but is only likely to occur in the event of a disaster of greater magnitude than any the United States has yet experienced. In the meantime , policymakers and analysts should explore, debate, and assess the potential challenges of cross-sector cooperation so that when disaster does strike, new contributions can make a positive and immediate impact on policymaking. This research would not have been possible without the generosity of those who shared their time and experiences with me. I tried to capture and reflect these conversations with the greatest possible accuracy, and any errors in the interpretation of what any of these individuals shared with me are, of course, my full responsibility. I would like to particularly thank Archie Dunham, Bob Liscouski, Nitin Natarajan, Lynne Kidder, Steve Carmel, Bryan Koon, Erin Mullen, Jim Young, Bob Grimaila, Rick Holmes, Clay Detlefsen, Capt. George McCarthy, and Frances Fragos Townsend. The insights, anecdotes, and willingness of these interviewees to speak frankly and openly about their experiences allowed this book to take shape. I would like to offer special thanks to Darryl Williams for his tremendous help, and in particular to Gen. Charles C. Krulak for his unwavering support of this project and continued assistance. I would also like to acknowledge Randy Lerner, who first realized the potential for the Federal Reserve System to serve as a model for formalized cooperation between the public–private sectors after 9/11. This book is based on a PhD thesis originally supervised by Ken Young and Wyn Bowen at King’s College London. It was an...