Ports, Supply Chains, and Recovery
A blog post by Lily Bui, PhD candidate at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning
June 19, 2018
Puerto Rico means “rich port” in Spanish. The island’s name itself refers to one of its most important assets: its ports. Both air and sea ports in Puerto Rico are key entry and exit points for the flow of goods, people, and information.
After Hurricanes Irma and Maria in the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, Puerto Rico’s ports were severely damaged by the winds and storm surge, congesting critical supply chains that the island would otherwise depend on for relief supplies like food, water, generators, people, and more. For long-term recovery, Puerto Rico’s dependence upon imports for its economic survival makes it extremely vulnerable to port closures.
Our practicum course was able to visit the risk management team for Crowley (http://crowley.com/), the largest shipping company on the island. Owning 46% of the market share, Crowley imports and exports a range of cargo – from food to cars to construction materials. The company was one of the first to restore shipping services after Hurricane Maria and was one of FEMA’s partners for coordinating the delivery of aid to the island.
Cargo means lives saved. This was the ethos of the company during the hurricane response, and it has since then reflected deeply on its lessons learned from Hurricane Maria. Some of the lessons that the team shared with us, among others, were as follows:
- Take care of personnel first. About 60% of Crowley’s staff showed up to work a day after Hurricane Maria hit, and about 90% had shown up by the second day. The company provided food, water, shelter, electricity, and laundry services to employees and their family. This provided a space for boosting morale and simultaneously boosted economic production after the storm.
- Invest in more preparedness activities before hurricane season, such as a dedicated Hurricane Preparedness Month. Every meeting at Crowley’s risk management team also starts with a “safety moment” in which employees are able to point out safety practices that could be improved.
- Plan ahead to pre-stage food, water, and emergency supplies at their terminal before expected storms.
- Coordinate and build relationships with their customers, NGOs, and governments during non-disaster periods.
- Pursue microgrid technology as a means of backup power for the shipping terminal. The power outages across the entire island surprised most of the population, but it was most crippling for businesses that relied on power to operate. Microgrid technology – or similar alternatives – may assist with shipping companies’ ability to bounce back more quickly.
Islands suffer the tyranny of distance when it comes to supply chains. Because of their isolation from their continental counterparts, islands rely heavily on companies like Crowley for recovery, and essentially for their livelihoods. At day’s end, the recovery of supply chains leads to the recovery of an island’s economy, its people’s livelihood, and its overall resilience.
Featured Image: Crowley containers in the San Juan terminal shipping yard.
From Community to Federal Government: A Closer Look at Coastal Areas in Puerto Rico
June 14, 2018
What will your planning recommendation be? Professor Maritza Barreto, a coastal geologist, started us of with this challenge. There’s only one road to Loiza – Route 187 – and after seasonal swells people aren’t able to get in and out of the area because it gets damaged, flooded and covered by sand. Hurricane Maria exacerbated the situation. A field trip with her guidance fueled our imagination by clearly pointing out the coastal risks that have been impacting access. Our first stop was a municipal beach near the entrance to Loiza.
At this stop, we learned how sand movement impacted planning options. It was clear that we needed to understand this phenomenon deeper.
Our second stop was at Kioskos where we sensed how sand movement that covered Route 187 also meant loss to small businesses.
The third stop was by a school which dramatized how critical infrastructure are impacted when there is no access to Route 187.
The fourth stop illustrated, among others, how road design could trap salt water and threaten the health of mangrove forest.
The final stop was in Juarez where erosion has already destroyed a road, a park and threatened beachfront homes.
It was clear from our questions that we were considering a few options (seasonal route, retreat etc). We ended up picking up ideas about community empowerment that planners can add to their tools. The local planning school engaged residents to become citizen scientists who know more about sand. We also reaffirmed that disaster response protocol and community leadership can make a difference. We were reminded that, as planners, we have to also think about the informal sectors, justice, and more.
After the Loiza tour, we were invited to the FEMA Joint Recovery Office in Puerto Rico (PR). FEMA officials were gracious enough to share time and information about the ongoing recovery operations. It was interesting to learn that for the first time, they are taking a ‘sector/system approach’ of recovery instead of an organizational approach. Each sector (EX: infrastructure, utilities) includes an entire range of FEMA operations to guide response/recovery. The purpose of this approach is to involve and entrust PR’s sectors to identify recovery needs, strategies, and plans. Meeting with FEMA informed us that FEMA is extremely interested in partnering with university students to develop case studies and thesis work.
UH Urban Planning Practicum: Learning from Maria
June 13, 2018
This summer, a team of graduate students from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawaii travel to Puerto Rico to study the recovery from Hurricane Maria in order to identify important lessons for Hawaii and other island communities. Led by Professor Karl Kim and assisted by Rob Porro of NDPTC and Lily Bui who is a Ph.D. candidate in planning from MIT, the class is a requirement for the Masters in Urban and Regional Planning and involves teamwork, conducting research, applying planning knowledge, skills, and values and developing a professional planning study for a client. This year’s client is the City and County of Honolulu, Office of Climate Change, Sustainability, and Resiliency and the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC). Matt Gonser who works for the City and County of Honolulu has accompanied the team to foster connections between San Juan and Honolulu. The purpose of this project is to understand and support efforts to enhance disaster recovery with an emphasis on community planning, geospatial analysis, and community capacity building. The efforts are linked to NDPTC’s course development initiatives which are focused on training first responders, emergency managers, and community members engaged in building resilient communities. NDPTC, a national center housed at the University of Hawaii (ndptc.hawaii.edu) and funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has delivered training to more than 35,000 people in 350 communities across the country.
Puerto Rico shares many similarities with Hawaii. In addition to being an island community, it is exposed to many of the same coastal hazards including hurricanes, flooding, storm surge, erosion, sea level rise, landslides, and climate change. As such, the research trip provides an opportunity to compare approaches to measuring and modeling environmental change, policy responses, and lessons related to disaster recovery. According to Professor Kim, “the challenges of disaster recovery, in island communities, are especially great and we need to work together to understand, learn, and foster preparedness and strengthen capabilities to plan, rebuild, and enhance resilience.”
In addition to participating in training courses on disaster recovery offered by NDPTC and a course on green infrastructure given by NOAA, the students met with key stakeholders from Federal, Territorial, local agencies as well as from universities, NGOs, and community organizations involved in the response and recovery in Puerto Rico. The team also visited FEMA’s Joint Field Office (JFO) which recently transitioned to the Joint Recovery Office (JRO). Working closely with the University of Puerto Rico’s planning program in San Juan and the Sea Grant Program in Mayaguez, the team also visited areas impacted by the storm in order to learn about the damages, hazards, changes in the natural and built environments, and efforts to rebuild and recover from the hurricane.
Valuable lessons regarding the importance of planning and recovery will not just serve students in their professional development, but also help to contribute to the development of policies and programs for building resilience in our communities.
Research Matters: Collaborative Efforts to Understand and Reduce Disasters in Indonesia
Blog entry by Dr. Karl Kim
December 28, 2017
The three-day workshop in Yogyakarta was useful both in reviewing research on resilience as well as framing and sharing different perspectives among the participants as to continued collaboration. We heard from the researchers about a variety of different hazards and threats in Indonesia. Some are natural hazards, such as earthquakes, tsunamis and storms. Some of the potential disasters are affected by human actions such as living or building in flood plains. Others such as wildfires are also triggered by human activities or exacerbated by poor planning, especially decisions that allow for construction and development in hazard zones. Building in the “red” zones puts more people and assets at risk.
One of the common themes across the various presentations is the importance of context. With disasters, context is everything. Disasters are contingent on the types of hazards, where they exist, who is affected, how they are managed and what actions are taken to mitigate and adapt to these conditions. We learned from each other about different approaches to reducing vulnerability to diverse hazards and threats.
We also heard from many different disciplines. Engineering was particularly well-represented. Within engineering itself there are many different sub-disciplines, including civil, mechanical, structural, environmental, and others. We also touched on atmospheric sciences and other basic sciences. Scientific inquiry helps us to understand the fundamental foundations for the exposure to different harm causing forces as well as the physical and social conditions affecting disaster risk reduction.
Presentations on land use, planning, and other disciplines address governance and how we collectively manage resources. Public health, social work, planning and community development entails working closely with communities, interacting with stakeholders and residents, to identify, assess, and implement common actions and collective choices. This includes important aspects of disaster risk reduction such as increasing awareness, preparedness strategies, and other activities to reduce risks. We heard about early warning systems to detect and get information about different types of hazards so that that people can evacuate and get to safe shelter or shelter in place. Some of the discussions also covered response and mass care capabilities.
It was particularly refreshing to hear from both traditional academic perspectives and from more action-oriented practitioners. While some of the participants were interested in contributing to theoretical knowledge or improvements in scientific method for measuring and analyzing phenomena relevant to disasters, others were also more interested in developing and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions or actions to reduce vulnerabilities and increase preparedness, safety, and security.
It was also very interesting to learn about the work done in many different communities throughout Indonesia. In addition to learning about disaster risk reduction efforts in large and medium sized cities, we also learned about efforts in rural, agrarian communities as well as impacts on fisheries, food security, and other key economic sectors. The role of critical infrastructure as well as the importance of social capital, networks, NGOs, and community-based organizations was also covered. It was also useful to learn about communities exposed to multiple hazards and threats and how management of one hazard can contribute to improvements for other threats.
Ordinarily, when discussing disasters there is a tendency to gravitate towards response, rather than preparedness, mitigation, and recovery. The group in Yogyakarta spent some time talking about response, more of the discussions were focused on the complex tasks involving mitigation and adaptation strategies. Embedded in this discussion, however, were disciplinary stovepipes and biases but it was great to see presentations and approaches to bridging these differences and trying to think in a collaborative and multi-disciplinary manner.
While much was covered, there are clearly gaps and needs which need to be addressed. In addition to greater integration across diverse disciplines involved in supporting both emergency management as well as disaster risk reduction, there is special need for more emphasis on “green” approaches to risk reduction. Not limited to Indonesia, an emphasis on building hard structures for protecting properties from flooding may lead to secondary or unanticipated consequences including harm to others. There is a need for improved data collection and better sharing of data and methods. Common definitions of risk, as well as standardized terminologies and greater uniformity in mapping, measuring, and reporting of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capabilities would go a long way in terms of improving the science and evaluation of disaster risk reduction programs in Indonesia. There is a need for more comparative research both in terms of countries similar to Indonesia as well as across the vast lands and communities exposed to diverse risks and vulnerabilities.
In summary, the workshop helped to review the wide range of different efforts to understand and reduce disaster risks from a variety of different academic perspectives involving both theoretical and scientific knowledge but also on-the-ground experiences of practitioners interested in communities, governance, and management of social and environmental conditions. Sharing information about different hazards in different communities with different approaches helps to build capacity and promote mutual gains from learning about disaster. In this way, research can contribute to the design and implementation of effective strategies and the real-world experiences of practitioners can also support deeper understanding and dissemination of what works and what needs improvement in terms of disaster risk reduction and resilience. While much was accomplished, there remains so much more to be done. We need to continue to build capacity as well as document and disseminate the knowledge and best practices for learning about and reducing harm from disasters.
