CARRI News

Memphis Urban Area Holds Capstone Meeting
Marking the First Year of Research on Community Resilience and Defining the Elements of Future Resilience-Enhancing Activity in 2009

Shelby County Mayor A.C. Wharton Jr. kicked off the Community and Regional Resilience Initiative’s (CARRI) Memphis Urban Area (MUA) capstone meeting expressing appreciation to the work of CARRI and the many community and institutional leaders who have spent the last year working on resiliency issues critical to the entire community.  
      
The 60 participants at the meeting represented a broad diversity of key stakeholders from across the region, including members of the Advisory Group guiding the CARRI process in the MUA and leadership from cosponsoring organizations: Mid-South Association of Contingency Planners (MSACP), University of Memphis Center for Earthquake Research and Information (CERI), West Tennessee Seismic Safety Commission (WTSSC) and MemphisFIRST. 
       
A focal point of the capstone meeting was the development of a wide-ranging list of possible areas of focus to increase the MUA’s resilience based on their knowledge of the issues that Memphis and the surrounding areas face. The CARRI-MUA team has proposed 13 focus areas that consistently came up in CARRI-sponsored community meetings and individual conversations with a wide range of stakeholders in MUA over the course of the last year. The proposed 13 focus areas include:

• Small Businesses Continuity & Disaster Recovery
• Coordination for Preparedness, Response, and Recovery
• Preparedness of Residents
• Faith-Based Community and Emergency Management
• Mass Sheltering and Care Project
• Transportation Sector 
• Volunteer Coordination
• At-Risk and Vulnerable Residents
• Vulnerability of School Systems
• Structural Mitigation for MUA Hospitals
• Increasing Broad-Based Participation in Formal Exercises
• Private Practice Medical Professionals
• Staff and Family Care Plans for Medical and Public Health Personnel

Small groups of participants discussed the focus areas and engaged in an exercise to map how much each focus area may enhance resilience and the resources required to do so. 
       
Several issues were raised about the engagement of faith-based communities. There is widespread recognition that faith-based communities have a lot to contribute to resilience, and at the same time finding the right avenues for their involvement, both in preparing for and during disruptions, has been a challenge. Participants also identified as a priority, communication between disaster responders/officials and the public when conventional communications methods fail. 
       
Most everyone can identify items that strongly enhance resilience; however it is much more difficult to identify the costs or resources that will be needed. The CARRI-MUA will deconstruct work on each focus area into a sequence of events that can be more easily managed. The CARRI-MUA will also be looking at responses from individuals and see if there are patterns and what might be learned from them. It will also be important to look for connections between focus areas – how some might be lumped together, how some actions might yield paybacks for multiple focus areas and how addressing one focus area may help to address others.
       
Enhancing resilience is a community-driven process. Continuing dialogue around the focus areas will be used as a springboard to action. The CARRI-MUA  team and Advisory Group will begin to identify strategies and roadmaps, including resource development, to address focus areas. The CARRI-MUA team also emphasized the importance of individual leadership and outreach. Participants were encouraged to consider how they can further contribute and engage others – from across the region – who could contribute to and benefit from discussion and action around particular focus areas. The Capstone meeting successfully set the stage to move the CARRI-MUA project from observations to action, collaborative community action in 2009 and beyond.
      
Other highlights of the capstone meeting included:
 
Arleen Hill, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Memphis, presented key observations and findings from the research undertaken by CARRI, both in general and in the MUA. She suggested that resilience serves communities every day – not only during significant disruptions. Resilience is about relationships, and occurs where bonds are cultivated and intentionally sustained. Resilient communities can function when plans fail; they avoid over-planning to the point of inflexibility; they recruit, organize and empower those who are marginalized or not yet included; and they cultivate a culture of resilience. Arleen Hill noted that Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) (http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/ ) is almost universally known in the MUA and that rates of participation are high. Residents of the MUA are taking action to promote resilience with an understanding that resilience requires sustained effort. She also presented the 13 focus areas identified by community members as key to continuing to enhance community resilience in the Memphis area discussed further below.

Chief Kenneth Reeves of the Memphis Fire Department led a tabletop exercise developed to highlight interdependencies within the community. The exercise began with a recollection of experiences of two prior events -- the ice storm of 1994 and “Hurricane Elvis” (1993 straight-line wind event) – as reference points for the severity of events and ability of the community to respond. The scenario consisted of a very severe winter storm over a very large area (several states) with extensive damage across the region from tornados and straight-line winds, widespread power outage for up to 14 days, heavy ice and snow, temperatures not exceeding 30 degrees and fuel shortages. Each table functioned as if it were a particular institution/sector, including a bank, Memphis Light Gas & Water, the postal and shipping industry, NextAir (compressed gas services – medical oxygen) and city government. 
       
Rick Bowker, President of the Mid-South Association of Contingency Planners, and member of the CARRI-MUA Advisory Group, led a simulated post-event analysis using the “Six Hats Thinking” method (www.mindtools.com/rs/SixHats/). This process entails looking at the event from six distinct perspectives. Several areas for further action emerged, including:

• Organizations (public, private, and nonprofit) need to know the human resources likely to be available at various stages of an event and recovery. Availability is dependent upon employee/volunteer preparation of sound plans for family and dependent rescue and care.
• Preparing for multiple simultaneous events is important as entire systems may easily become overwhelmed by a confluence of circumstances.
• Establishing clear lines of authority within organizations, including the range of discretion individuals have to address urgent circumstances in which they may be the most senior decision-maker.

Please contact Sarah Walen, CARRI-MUA team member, at skwalen@merid.org if you have questions about the CARRI-MUA resilience focus areas or are interested in participating in any way.
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Community Briefs

Charleston, South Carolina Tri-County Area

The CARRI-Charleston Tri-County Area held their second focus group meetings in early November for the following two areas: (1) transportation and mobility and (2) communication and information sharing. Advisory Group liaisons have been appointed for each focus group.  The liaisons for Communications and Information Sharing are Laura Varn, Vice President of Corporate Communications, Santee Cooper and Jason Patno, Director, Emergency Management, Charleston County.  The liaison for Transportation and Mobility is Cory Pharr, The Maritime Association, Port of Charleston.

Both teams defined the current state of their respective focus area and what they hope the future state will be and began outlining the steps to reach that goal.  Another set of meetings will be held in early December to further outline the necessary steps so a draft roadmap can be completed before the end of the year.

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