Planning for resilience before a hurricane, fire or flood

Our individual and community resilience depends on what we do before a crisis.

As wildfire season approaches and more hurricanes, floods and tornadoes are expected in the months to come, it's time to ask yourself if you have the support you need to experience resilience. I know this from experience. When Hurricane Fiona toppled trees like bowling pins and tore roofs off homes, Maritime communities responded with the kind of collective goodwill that is a legacy of fishing communities now metropolises. There is much to learn from history about what makes us resilient. It's not just a matter of individual courage. It won't get you a new roof or bring down a grove of trees leaning precariously next to your garage. To survive and for the sense of well-being it brings, we need our community as much as we need a positive outlook on life and coping strategies that help us avoid blaming ourselves for accidents we we could not avoid.

I have learned a lot during my travels and through my research on post-disaster resilience. The communities that survive best are those that have invested in building relationships long before the first drop of rain falls or fire breaks out. They tend to be more tolerant of differences, happy to welcome anyone who wants to join them, and willing to accept that different people have different talents to offer.

They also provide spaces for people to meet. I love dog parks, mainly because they give dog owners a common space to chat. The same goes for children's play equipment, places of worship, local ethnic organizations and their halls. But let's not forget community consultations when developers build new subdivisions. It is through these community efforts that people can advocate for sidewalks (which break social isolation), pickleball courts, and space to host communal dinners. There are many other ways to prepare our community for the next great unknown. Sports leagues, green spaces, fishing tournaments and choirs help give us a sense of belonging and the well-being of our neighbors (even if we don't know their names) is our responsibility. Add in a homeless shelter, volunteer fire department, social services, and trusted police, and you may have built the infrastructure you need to survive a hurricane, tornado, flood or a forest fire.

Indeed, these buffers against disaster also prevent us from experiencing trauma, which we now understand is far from inevitable. George Bonanno, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, prefers the term “potentially traumatic events” to describe how we experience disasters that are becoming more frequent as the climate emergency persists. These events don't have to be persistent sources of disorder when we have the support around us to literally weather a storm. Add a healthy dose of social justice to any community and the result will likely be a faster recovery that might even result in a more cohesive community rather than one traumatized for years.

Unfortunately, we have too many examples of failed recoveries. New Orleans and the decades-long effort to recover from Hurricane Katrina are emblematic of what can go wrong when people are not treated fairly and communities are marred by racism and structural disadvantage. The dispersal of people and the destruction of community cohesion do not create the conditions necessary for emotional or physical recovery. Although many residents in my area will have to move further inland after Fiona threw boulders the size of small cars onto their lawns and flooded their homes, there is hope that these people can restore some of the community that 'they lost. It is no coincidence that forcibly displaced people, whether Ukrainians fleeing war or Californians whose homes burned down, seek to find others who share a common history and identity to tell their story and remember. The diaspora of displaced people provides a buffer against trauma, even if no mental health care provider is present while we drink coffee with those with whom we share a common past.