Query: Community Disaster Recovery

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

[ed: please feel welcomed to copy COMM-ORG with responses to Bill's 
query. A bit from me below.]

From: "Berkowitz, William" <William_Berkowitz at uml.edu>


Dear Colleagues,

Do you know any good examples of tools, checklists, stories, or 
resources related to community disaster recovery?

I’m working as part of a national team that is preparing a manual for 
community groups on how to plan and implement community disaster 
recovery efforts. (As contrasted with disaster preparedness.) We are 
using the term “disaster” broadly; but our focus in this case is on the 
broader social and community actions that need to be taken after a 
disaster event, as contrasted with meeting immediate human needs or with 
physical rebuilding.

Our manual draft is nearly complete; but we would like to include some 
useful illustrative how-to-do-it type materials on how other communities 
have planned and carried out disaster recovery in practice. If you have 
any, or know of any, we’d be grateful if you might be able to share them 
with us and others.

Thanks very much for your help.

~~ Bill

Bill Berkowitz
Dept. of Psychology
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Lowell, MA 01845

(978) 934-3655

Bill_Berkowitz at uml.edu

**********************

[ed: interestingly, one of the things I have been hearing in the wake of 
Katrina is about neighborhood-based disaster preparation as the most 
important pre-requisite to recovery. In contrast to centralized 
government and Red Cross models, the neighborhood-based model is built 
on residents' knowledge of their own neighborhood and neighbors. An 
interesting example is at 
http://www.nicasio.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=48. 
The Institute for Community Based Research at Delta State University is 
also a good source for new thinking on disaster preparation and 
recovery--http://ntweb.deltastate.edu/vp_academic/jgreen/New_ICBR_WebPages/index_ICBR.htm]