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