Josh Bruce, AICP

Interim Director

Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience

Community Service Center, University of Oregon

jdbruce@uoregon.edu

Resilience Planning OverviewSeaside, Oregon

May 13, 2013

Resilience Pilot Project Local Work Group Meeting

Funding and support from:

Oregon citizens will not only be protected from life-threatening physical harm, but because of risk reduction measures and pre-disaster planning, communities will recover more quickly and with less continuing vulnerability following a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake and tsunami (OSSPAC Definition)

BikePortland.org

What is “Resilience”?

What is “Resilience”?

• The ability of a local community to respond to, and recover from, an incident or emergency

• The ability to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and recover from disruptions

• The ability to sustain ecologicalservices, life support systems, biological diversity, and economic vitality.

• The degree to which a community is capable of absorbing disturbances and maintain its functions, reorganize, or renew.

Characteristics of Resilient Systems

• Flexibility/Diversity

• Redundancy/Modularity

• Safe failure

• Networked systems– Vertical– Horizontal

Resilience Flow I

South Coast Recovery Project, OPDR

Resilience Flow II

Resilience Pyramid – EM Focus

RESILIENCE

Recovery Plan

Short-term Long-term

Continuity Plan

Continuity of Operations Business Resumption

Emergency Operations Plan

Immediate Response Sustained Operations

Mitigation Plan

Post-Disaster Pre-Disaster

Five-Year Strategic & Business Plan

Enterprise-wide vision for Emergency Management

Resilience of What?

• Emergency Services (evacuation, response, recovery)

• Citizens, property and infrastructure

• Energy and transportation systems

• Food and water systems

• Social systems

• Local Economy

• Natural systems

Photo Credit” Horning Geosciences; Source: Oregon Resilience Plan

Resilience to What?

• Climate change (sea level rise, storm events, etc.)

• Disasters (earthquake, tsunami, flood, wildfire)

• Economic challenges/downturns

• Surprises & ‘nonlinearities’

• Uncertainties

Plan Frameworks and Guidelines

• USAID- How Resilient Is Your Coastal Community? (Recommended)

• NOAA- Adapting to Climate Change: A Planning Guide for State Coastal Managers

• Rural Resilience Guide (Canadian)

What’s in a Resilience Plan?

• Local hazard threat/risk assessment

• Local vulnerability assessment

• Local asset & capacity assessment

• Climate change impact assessment

• Proposed actions and adaptations

Institute for Social and Environmental Transition: www.i-s-e-t.org

Resilience Strategy

Common Resilience Plan Themes

• Action-oriented • Include soft & hard actions

– Policy approaches

– Redundant & diverse infrastructure

• Make critical systems flexible– Focus on safe to fail, instead of failsafe

• Nested institutional networks– Vertical and horizontal alignment

• Have a responsive, organized, & involved community, with a local champion

Resilience Assessment Areas

• Governance• Society and Economy• Coastal Resource Management• Land Use and Structural Design• Risk Knowledge• Warning and Evacuation• Emergency Response• Disaster Recovery• Utilities• Natural and Cultural Systems

Sample Table of Contents

I. Purpose & Executive Summary

II. Community Profile

III. Existing Activities, Plans & Analysis

IV. Resilience Assessment (USAID framework)

V. Recommendations

VI. Action Plan

VII. Monitoring & Implementation

VIII. Conclusion

Discussion

• What themes should we focus on?– Resilience of what/to what?

• What type of plan is this?– Action, strategy, policy?