CARRI National Research Team Helping Communities and
Nation
By the National CARRI Research Team
The CARRI Research Team continues to move toward its goal of helping CARRI and its partner
communities clarify what resilience means and how a community can become more resilient. The Research Team is led by an Advisory Group that
consists of Tom Wilbanks, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, convener; Robert Kates, independent scholar, senior scientist; Susan Cutter, University of
South Carolina; Lance Gunderson, Emory University; Susi Moser, Susanne Moser Research and Consulting, Santa Cruz, CA; and Craig Colten, Louisiana
State University. The leaders of the Charleston, South Carolina; Gulfport, Mississippi; and Memphis, Tennessee local research teams are
considered co-equals and co-advisors as well.
Activities in recent months have emphasized two kinds of contributions:
1. Summarizing and synthesizing current research-based knowledge about community resilience,
its dimensions and strategies for enhancing resilience. Ten summaries of research literatures and lessons learned have been drafted
by experts in their fields and peer-reviewed. These reports are being revised for publication in a new CARRI research report series, which will
be a significant contribution to discussions of community resilience. An eleventh paper has been commissioned to cover perspectives from the
health care research community. A synthesis of these summaries, along with other relevant research information, is being drafted and will also be
published in the CARRI series. Meanwhile, CARRI is developing a comprehensive annotated bibliography of published research on community
resilience, to be made available to researchers, practitioners and decision-makers on the CARRI web site. A further objective is to
develop a CARRI perspective on priorities to strengthen the research-based knowledge base on community resilience, supporting CARRI’s emerging
role as a national center of knowledge and information on its core topic.
2. Working with the community teams to conceive and design local case studies of resilience,
what it means for that community, how it is viewed by stakeholders in that community and what the community can do to enhance its
resilience. The CARRI Research Team is proud to have three research teams in each of our partner communities led by Andy Felts in
Charleston, Tom Lansford in Gulfport, and Arleen Hill in Memphis. These local research teams, working closely with our national research team,
are actively engaged and working directly with each community, while providing key local and on-the-ground knowledge. CARRI remains firmly
committed to investing in our partner communities, using local research teams, to enhance and improve resilience at the local and regional
level. In March, Wilbanks and Wright visited all three communities to discuss challenges in the local case studies and relationships with the
Research Team as a whole, and the Research Team contributed actively to the development of a “template” for the local case
studies. Further interactions are planned in July in connection with the annual meeting of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of
Colorado, the national repository of information about human responses to natural hazards and a partner of CARRI.
Reflecting both of these national and local elements of CARRI’s research team, CARRI’s
knowledge development was reported to the larger research community for the first time at the annual meeting of the Association of American
Geographers in Boston on April 18, 2008. A panel discussion, which was introduced by Wilbanks and included presentations by Kates, Cutter,
Moser, Colten, and Hill, allowed comments and suggestions of other relevant research. The panel discussion was very well-attended and stimulated
an active and useful discussion.
In addition, in May 2008 the quarterly newsletter of the Natural Hazards Center, Natural Hazards
Observer, included a description of CARRI that is already generating feedback from the natural hazards research community.
The main objective of these activities continues to be one of idealism, not one of academic
status. Our goal is to assure that CARRI’s pursuit of community resilience enhancement is fully informed by research-based evidence as
well as new idea generation, in order to do our best to assure that the approaches CARRI develops, advocates, and implements are sound and valid
– that they will actually help to make the right things happen. In some cases, we are finding that the existing knowledge shows gaps
– that it cannot answer some of CARRI’s questions. Where that is the case, we are taking steps to engage the best-available
experts to fill those gaps. But in most cases knowledge is available to help steer CARRI’s initiatives onto the right tracks, so that
communities that join in this effort, investing their own time and resources in order to become more resilient, can be assured that what we are
advising them to do will actually make a difference. This is a heavy responsibility, and it is one that the CARRI Research Team takes very
seriously.
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FCC Commissioner receives CARRI
briefing
CARRI Press Release
May 1, 2008
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate visited Oak Ridge,
Tennessee on May 1st and received a briefing on the Community and Regional Resiliency Initiative (CARRI).
CARRI Senior Program Manager Ann Farrar presented Commissioner Tate with a general overview of CARRI
and discussed the importance that communications play in the response and recovery of a community after a natural or manmade disaster.
“We were certainly honored to have Commissioner Tate visit Oak Ridge and engage in a
discussion about CARRI,” said CARRI Director Warren Edwards. “We look forward to working closely with Commissioner Tate and the
FCC as we discuss the important role communications play in making a community more resilient.”
As a result of her visit, Commissioner Tate has helped arrange a trip to Oak Ridge by Derek Poarch,
Chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau collaborates with the
public safety community, industry and other government entities to license, facilitate, restore and recover communications services used by the
citizens of the United States, including first responders, before, during and after emergencies by disseminating critical information to the public
and by implementing the Commission's policy initiatives.
Look for more information in the June newsletter on Chief Poarch’s visit and
briefing.
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CARRI Works for Federal-led Resiliency
By the National Council on Readiness and Preparedness
May 20, 2008
The Community and Regional Resilience Initiative (CARRI) is a federally-funded program under the
Southeast Region Research Initiative and led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory which seeks to build partnerships among stakeholders to increase
resiliency in all sectors so that in the event of a natural or man-made disaster, a community will have the necessary means to respond and recover
quickly. Currently, CARRI organizers have worked with three communities in the Southeast to "enrich the knowledge bases available to other
communities," according to Corporate Research Fellow Thomas J. Wilbanks from Oak Ridge.
Wilbanks said in the Natural Hazards Observer, published by the University of Colorado that
CARRI's partnerships with the three communities of Memphis,Tennessee; Gulfport, Mississippi and Charleston, South Carolina focused "natural hazards
into a larger context of other threats to resilience, from possible economic downturns to possible exposures to epidemics and terrorist events."
"The knowledge gained from these three intense local experiences about resilience and how to achieve
it will enrich the knowledge bases available to other communities as they set out on similar paths. One example may be potentials for innovative
private-public sector partnerships. Another may be potentials for emerging information technologies to reshape information exchanges about risks and
emergency situations," Wilbanks said.
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CARRI Partner Community Briefs
Charleston, South Carolina
The CARRI Tri-County Charleston Area Team is continuing to prepare for their first
self-assessment working group in late May. This will be the first of two large working groups held over the summer, consisting of approximately 80
community leaders, stakeholders and subject matter experts. They will identify resilience issues and ultimately “resilience areas”
identified for improvement. Meetings have continued during May with community leaders to ensure sufficient representation from across the Tri-County
Charleston area. Examples of some of the additional organizations represented include the Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, several businesses in
private industry, Low Country Food Bank, YWCA, South Carolina Association of Community Development Corporations, Coastal Community Foundation of South
Carolina, Charleston Water System and Low Country Housing Trust.
In addition, the research effort, headed by the Joseph P. Riley Center for Urban Affairs and Policy
Studies at the College of Charleston, is actively amassing research and support material in anticipation of the May and June community assessment and
engagement meetings. Objective data relating to community resilience, including demographics, housing and real estate information, special needs
populations and community resources, are being collected to support the engagement phase, along with a compilation and review of existing reports and
studies. Where possible, these data are being generated in GIS format.
Gulfport, Mississippi
The CARRI Gulfport team is continuing community engagement activities to identify
resilience focus areas and to develop a Gulfport Case Study on Community Resilience. Since the initial meeting of the CARRI Gulfport/Gulf Coast
Advisory Group on April 16, the team participated in the Gulfport Hurricane Preparedness Meeting on April 30, conducted follow-up meetings with four
members of the Advisory Group on April 28-30, and toured the community recovery efforts since Katrina with the Gulfport Fire Chief on April 30.
The Team also held its second meeting with the Advisory Group on May 19 to initiate discussions to develop a list of candidate resilience focus
areas. Approximately 15 members of the Advisory Group participated and used a brainstorming process to identify approximately 30 subject matters
relevant to community resilience. In June the Team and the Advisory Group will meet to identify additional subject matters and to
prioritize and select resilience focus areas for Gulfport. Future community engagement for the second half of 2008 will be directed
towards future planning and resource/product developments for selected resilience focus areas.
Team members at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) – Gulf Coast are continuing
to collect information for the Gulfport Case Study on Community Resilience. The USM research team has continued its vetting process of
systematically exploring the literature surrounding Gulfport and in particular the effect of Hurricane Katrina. As such, the team has put together
some draft articles on community resilience that it will continue to refine over the next months to support development of the Case Study.
The USM research team is also making great strides to build a legacy for community resilience in
Gulfport. Efforts are underway to develop an academic center for policy and resilience on the university campus to house the USM research
efforts. In addition, the USM research team has also begun working closely with the Mississippi Gulf Coast Youth Development Coalition to
support the development of a web based asset tracking system for key non profit groups working on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. The goal of this
group is to provide a streamlined process for non profit sectors to coordinate activities and resources and thus could provide important lessons for
resilience processes.
The CARRI Gulfport Team is delighted to welcome the addition of Professor Jerry Coleman to the
research effort. Professor Coleman is an Instructor of Geography for the University of Southern Mississippi-Gulf Coast research
effort and is a life long learner with a deep respect for the geography of culture. He is an expert on Mississippi culture and geography with an
emphasis on Anthropogeography. Jerry’s parents moved to Gulfport in the early 1950’s, and built the ninth home and established the
first ongoing commercial endeavor in the Bayou View Subdivision of Gulfport.
Memphis, Tennessee Urban Area
A spring of storms brought flooding and heavy winds (including tornadoes) to the Memphis Urban Area
(MUA) study area, these events provide opportunities to learn about resilience in this community. A team of undergraduates at the University of
Memphis are joining MUA Research Director Arleen Hill and the MUA team in capturing perishable data and information about these events and to compare
them with other events in their history to see how the resilience landscape is defined and has evolved.
Members of the MUA Advisory Group, Levell Blanchard, Mike Brazzell, Barry Nelson, Claude Talford, and
Arleen Hill participated in the Disaster Preparedness Expo (http://www.volunteermemphis.org/emergency_preparedness_expo.htm) on April 30th. The
expo provided an opportunity to connect with residents and other organizations and several participants in the summer workshop/focus groups were
identified. This event fit into the MUA strategy for being inclusive of all groups actively engaged in resilience-type efforts. The first
of the summer resilience workshops took place on May 19th. The first workshop focused on Volunteers and Volunteer organizations and was co-hosted with
Volunteer Memphis. The purpose was to have a focused conversation exploring the definition of, experiences with, and ways volunteers support
resilience capacity building. In addition to networking and strengthening relationships in the MUA, the event also fed data and information
directly into the local research effort.
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