Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

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Towards safer and more secure cities
Box 12.12 Lessons learned for knowledge management and evacuation planning during Hurricane Rita, US (2005)
Whereas Hurricane Katrina’s evacuation plan
functioned relatively well for motorists, but failed to
serve people who depend upon public transport,
Hurricane Rita’s evacuation plan failed because of
excessive reliance on automobiles, resulting in traffic
congestion and local fuel shortages.
Three days before Hurricane Rita made
landfall, an evacuation plan that would see over 1
million people leave their homes was begun. On 21
September 2005, a staggered evacuation order was
announced for Galveston County and city. The
system of staggered evacuation and the designation
of particular evacuation routes and destination cities
for different zones of the county and city were
aimed at preventing traffic congestion. Evaluations of
the evacuation have identified a number of communication
failures and weaknesses.
Training and planning needs to include those
local authorities involved in evacuation. This can
help, for example, in streamlining traffic control to
reduce congestion, and in the provision of sanitary
facilities and primary healthcare along evacuation
routes. Public education is needed to inform people
of evacuation routes and destinations, and to provide
advice on the need to prepare adequately for long
journey times by taking adequate water, food,
medications, etc.
Conflicting information from state and media
weather bulletins and approaches to providing information
led to confusion. At times, the media
sensationalized the nature of the hazard, adding
unnecessarily to tension. This had an exaggerated
impact, given the recent nature of Hurricane Katrina.
Elected officials need to take control and act as
figure heads to reassure people and project a sense
of responsibility.
A number of recommendations have come
from reviews of communication and information
flow during the Rita evacuation. While communication
between state and local government was good,
there was a disconnection between public agencies
and the people. This needs to be improved. Simple
actions, such as providing more roadside signs about
fuel and water, have been proposed, as has a statewide
public education programme.
Source: Gutierrez, 2005
…reconstruction
governance is made
complicated by ad
hoc legislative and
institutional frameworks
generating
uncoordinated and
fragmented action
implementing assisted evacuation. Participatory risk
mapping can also be used to identify local resources, including
evacuation routes and buildings that can be converted
into public shelters.
For the majority of residents in many cities, resources
are not available for long distance evacuation; so local plans
based on local knowledge can help to bring order and clarity.
An additional advantage to decentralized planning is the capacity
for local plans to be implemented even if national or
city-wide communications and plans fail. However, the most
effective local systems do not operate in isolation. Liaisons
between adjacent communities and with city or national disaster
planning authorities can improve the performance of early
warning and action through exposure to the experiences of
other communities and national standards of good practice.
IMPROVING EMERGENCY
RESPONSE AND
RECONSTRUCTION
Urban areas offer specific challenges for emergency
response and recovery (see also Chapter 7). Key challenges
for emergency responders include:
• The existence of the majority of settlements in cities of
developing countries outside the formal and legal
system: at best, there are restricted land rights and
documentation.
• The mobility of responders can be inhibited by large
quantities of debris. Consequently, in some cases,
communities may not receive adequate medical
supplies, food, water and security for weeks.
• Public services may be inadequate, such as, for
instance, the lack of available water through the public
distribution system for fire fighting.
• Secondary disasters (such as fires, toxic spills and other
industrial accidents) complicate and hinder rescue
efforts (e.g. fire, smoke, gases).
• Information management for decision-making becomes
more complicated and difficult in larger settlements.
From the perspective of emergency services, resilience can
be built into risk management through making use of redundant
capacity. In cities exposed to frequent events, spare
capacity should be extended to mobilize materials, such as
medical stock, temporary accommodation, equipment, and
mobile water and sanitation units. Capacity can also be
extended by involving community actors and the wider civil
society in first-response planning and training. The Iranian
Red Crescent has promoted disaster-response training, with
over 1.2 million people trained. 51
Coordination of emergency response efforts between
different urban sectors remains a key challenge. It is particularly
important to synchronize response efforts that involve
critical services such as medical assistance, electricity and
water services. The case of Nanning City’s Urban Emergency
Response Centre in China illustrates the mechanisms for
establishing an integrated disaster response system (see Box
12.13)
Post-disaster recovery is also challenged, particularly if
this period is to make the most of its opportunity for ‘building
back better’ to reduce risk and integrate development within
reconstruction. The gap in funding and planning between
response, recovery and development continues. On the
ground, reconstruction governance is made complicated by ad
hoc legislative and institutional frameworks generating
uncoordinated and fragmented action. There is no agency
devoted to housing reconstruction, and very few of the major
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in relief
would claim to specialize here. UN-Habitat’s increasing
involvement in reconstruction is a progressive indication of
the positive contribution to be made by developmental actors.
Future improvements in recovery and reconstruction might
come from approaches that build on local and national capaci-