Building Collective Resilience in the Wake of Disasters

early in the morning on september 20th

2017

judith rodriguez awoke the sound of her

kitchen door flying off the hinges

as hurricane maria surged across puerto

rico

she survived the storm but the damage to

her home and the loss of electricity

made cooking impossible days later she

heard of a group of volunteers

serving meals from a community kitchen

in the neighboring town of kawas

she wanted to support the effort so she

brought up her dishes to see if they

could be put to use what she discovered

was that the community kitchen had

quickly evolved into becoming a centro

de apoyo mutual or

mutual aid center an open canvas for

several other basic services including

medical support

she found both community and an

opportunity

to directly contribute to the relief

effort

instead of feeling like a victim judith

was able to find a sense of purpose

through a shared experience with others

i’ve been interested in stories like

this one for a long time

i grew up in a small community of about

200 people

and it feels strange to say it but i

have fond memories of when things have

gone wrong

disruptions meant that for a week a day

or

maybe even just a few hours neighbors

forgot about whatever else was going on

in their own lives and any interpersonal

conflicts they had

and came together to work towards a

common goal

this happened when a culvert got jammed

and a pond emerged in the middle of our

main access road

when the creek rose so high that it

washed out the bridge

or when my neighbor’s home burned the

ground and many of us

ran around the hillsides putting out

spot fires that would have most likely

engulfed our entire community

be easy to look at these situations and

think that we were forced to come

together

but i see it differently i would argue

that most people are just waiting for an

opportunity to collaborate

to show up for each other to share what

they have and

if only for a moment in time to feel a

sense of purpose

for the past three years my colleagues

and i at charible have had the privilege

to work with a team of journalists audio

producers

graphic artists filmmakers and several

organizations

to explore how communities are building

collective resilience

in the wake of disasters through our

documentary series the response

while we have learned a lot in that time

i’ll try my best to sum up our findings

in three points

with a little help from artist kane

lynch first

climate change field disasters are

destructive scary

and on the rise all over the world

there’s a lot to unpack there

so i’m going to come back to this in a

moment

second the majority of news coverage of

these events

teeters on the edge of disaster porn

focusing on the sheer mass of

destruction affecting the victims

while celebrating a few token heroes

at worst the media often perpetuates

harmful stereotypes

depicting people meeting their basic

needs for survival as looters

and contributing to the justification

for the extrajudicial killings of mostly

people of color

by police and white vigilantes a

sickening example of this occurred new

orleans during hurricane katrina

but in both scenarios reporting

routinely underplays the incredible

response by the impacted communities

themselves

and the existing structural issues that

cause

natural hazards to become disasters in

the first place

are completely left out of the story

third

and here’s some good news the

overwhelming evidence

shows that more often than not it’s the

people living in the affected

communities who

despite all the obstacles rise to the

occasion

to save lives reduce suffering and form

a community of care

experiencing what rebecca solnit calls

disaster collectivism

i’ve been told i never get tired of

giving people bad news so

here we go the impacts of climate change

are already being felt

this is no longer just a challenge that

future generations are going to have to

face

it’s ours now according to a recent

report from the un

in the past 20 years there were 7 000

major disaster events

causing 1.2 million deaths affecting

more than 4 billion people

and resulting in almost 3 trillion

dollars in global economic

losses strikingly the number of

climate-related disasters

nearly doubled from the previous two

decades

this year we’ve hit the hottest global

temperatures on record

seeing the first gigafire burning over 1

million acres in northern california

and even had a zombie storm in the

atlantic

now the questions are how bad is the

climate going to get

how quickly can it get better and what

are we going to do in the meantime

i don’t know about the first two

questions but i’ve seen a number of

things that might just hold some of the

answers to the last one

after hurricane sandy hit new york city

on the heels of the occupy wall street

movement in 2012

a network of autonomous relief efforts

came together

under the banner of occupy sandy it

became one of the most effective

responses after the storm

at one point swelling to sixty thousand

volunteers due in large part their

informal techniques

they were able to foster relationships

with residents who in turn

played a key role in their own recovery

they utilized a mixture of crowdsourcing

essential goods from individuals and

other organizations

and the redistribution of government aid

primarily in the economically

marginalized rockaways peninsula

as part of this network terry bennett

created respond and rebuild

which among other things specialized in

the pumping

and gutting of flooded homes she put an

incredible amount of time and energy

into making personal connections with

the folks she was helping

great example of this is actually from

the first basement she pumped out

for a retired cop and her husband they

pulled up with their big yellow van

looking a little rough around the edges

after having not slept or showered or

changed their clothes in days

terry fondly recounted an exchange she

had with the woman after

they’d known each other for a little

while she conveyed that

her perceptions about other people were

forever changed because of the hurricane

saying a month before the storm

if i would have seen people looking like

you i wouldn’t have given them

directions for the train

but then a month after the storm i’ve

given you the keys to my house

while the scale of occupy sandy’s

response is incredibly impressive

it’s the transformational aspect of

their work that has really stuck with me

in 2017 a magnitude 7.1

earthquake toppled over 40 buildings

caused more than 350 deaths

and injured thousands in and around

mexico city

with so much destruction occurring out

of nowhere an

understandable level of chaos and

confusion soon followed

it became clear that there was a lot of

misinformation being spread over social

media

regarding where people were trapped

which locations needed life-saving

support

and how much of it community organizers

jumped into action and utilized a vast

number of volunteers

to gather information from the field in

order to track and

verify where support was needed using

basic digital tools like a whatsapp

group and

google spreadsheets verificato 19s

became such a valuable resource

the government agencies began coming to

them for information about

where they should go and the legacy of

this initiative lives on

a set of protocols and manuals they

created have been adopted by

almost 60 media outlets civil society

organizations and universities

and speaking of earthquakes in 2011

a triple disaster was initiated by a 9.0

quake

it sent a 45-foot tall tsunami crashing

into the eastern coast of japan

leading to 18 000 deaths and causing a

triple meltdown

of the fukushima daiyachi nuclear power

plant

instead of rushing to rebuild after town

had been completely destroyed

the residents of anagawa were able to

thoughtfully transform their experience

from a catastrophic disaster to a once

in a thousand year opportunity

through a series of small listening

circles the community decided to

radically change the physical structure

of the town

onogawa offers a glimpse into what it

looks like to not just rebuild the old

systems and structures that

weren’t working for people in the first

place but rather to do so with a greater

resilience

equity and humanity

now here we are in the middle of a

global pandemic

for the first time in a hundred years

pretty much everyone on the planet

is experiencing the same disaster at the

same time

and while the vast majority of us have

had our daily lives disrupted and

significant and

in many cases catastrophic ways there

has also been an incredible outpouring

of support for one another

across the globe people are safely

reaching out to their neighbors

offering connection and support it’s

become such a widespread trend

that the term mutual aid is increasingly

becoming mainstream

as local newspapers cnn and even teen

vogue are publishing about it

this is quite the sea change it’s hard

to believe that less than a year ago

we were publishing stories about people

who were getting arrested

for handing out free food it didn’t make

any sense before

but it’s almost impossible to fathom now

more than anything coven 19 has

reinforced the importance of our social

connections well

that and the life and death impact of

our political leaders

and for the people of puerto rico this

is all too familiar

back in 2017 mutual aid centers like the

one judith contributed to in kawas

spread all across the islands with 11

formal centers

and far more pop-up spaces emerging

shortly after the hurricane

in the vacuum left by the inadequate

response from the united states

government

and while it’s been over three years

since the recovery began

the centers continue to play a vital

role in supporting the resilience of

their communities

in the face of earthquakes hurricanes

and now the pandemic

organizers have continued their efforts

to build popular power

and are modeling what movement

generation refers to as permanently

organized communities

as we face the reality of an

increasingly chaotic climate

we must examine the situation through a

social economic and political lens

without intervention the contours of a

disaster’s impact and recovery

will inevitably exacerbate existing

inequalities

maybe the best technology we can deploy

in the wake of a disaster

might just be a kind of social

technology closely knit

organized and empowered communities that

are more resilient during catastrophes

and better able to demand the resources

they need

to not only survive those acute

disasters but to rebuild

on a more just and sustainable basis

perhaps these disastrous events can open

up a space that is normally closed off

a gap in which we can begin reclaiming

community agency and power

an opportunity to tell a different story

about who we are

and what gives our lives meaning and

purpose

thank you

you