russellastronomy.com

Bouncing Back — Do you know your Resilience?

Two days ago I learned my beautiful city has a Chief Resilience Officer — a facilitator for developing a resilience strategy and networking with partners for innovative solutions. Your city might have one too, or getting one…or need one. The post simply stated the new Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) would ensure the City would expand its resilience capacity. That when a disaster strikes, we would now be better prepared to keep our water, communications and other key infrastructure operational.

I found the blog post while researching a recent incident and I was intrigued by the announcement of the new Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) position. As a city employee in emergency management, the first questions that came to mind are:

· What is Resilience? What are the CRO’s specific duties and responsibilities?

· What was the reason or motivation behind the appointment, especially in our economically constrained times?

· How does this affect me? Can it promote or hinder my work functions?

· And is the Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) just another bureaucratic layer or a new institution to focus on the cooperation and communication between the city’s stakeholders?

The lunchroom conversation provided some insight on defining resilience. One command officer stated it was about recovery, “For example, getting housing for occupants after a fire”. Another’s opinion was working with the community for better situational awareness and needs assessment. One lunch patron stated it was the new Washington bussword for a mindset or framework for feeling positive. Now my organization prides itself on high morale and reliability, so the need didn’t seem so evident — at the time. That was two days ago and what started as a simple query quickly transitioned into …well this series of posts about resilience.

IMPORTANT — The Chief Resilience Officer position is funded by a $100 million commitment by the Rockefeller Foundation — at no cost to the taxpayers! The 100 Resilient Cities Challenge (100RC) is a program to develop a network of resources to assist cities to become more resilient to 21st century threats and hazards. The focus is not limited to aging critical infrastructure, but the disruptions and stresses that cause vulnerabilities. This would be specific to the individual city, for example, ineffective mass transportation, endemic homeless population, and high crime or unemployment. Additional information is cited from the 100RC source, “Cities in the 100RC network are provided with the resources necessary to develop a roadmap to resilience along four main pathways:

1. Financial and logistical guidance for establishing an innovative new position in city government, a Chief Resilience Officer, who will lead the city’s resilience efforts;
2. Expert support for development of a robust resilience strategy;
3. Connecting member cities to solutions, service providers, and other partners who can help them develop and implement their resilience strategies; and
4. Membership in a global network of member cities who can learn from and help each other.”

There were 32 initial CROs with a second round of cities announced this month. There will be a 2015 selection, and more importantly, even if your city doesn’t participate directly there will be a website for lessons learned. After 25 years in city emergency management and teaching special operations worldwide I can attest that our urban areas share many universal problems (the degrees may differ) and the communication of smart practices, leveraging of expertise and experience, and effective and efficient use of resources is paramount.

You may have noticed the term resilience was used five times (sixth in abbreviation) in the one sentence I quoted from 100RC. The term seems rather cyclic in definition and broad in usage. In my next several posts I will try to answer my own questions (bulleted above) and how I would implement resilience.

Next post — What is resilience? If you query your smartphone there will be a multitude of results:

1. The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties

2. The power or ability to return to original form after being compressed or stretched

3. An individual’s ability to properly adapt to stress and adversity.

The following are links to the series of posts on resilience and emergency management (total of six):

What is Resilience?

Building Bridges Broadens Our Purpose

A More Proactive Emergency Services Enhances Resilience

Steps for Emergency Services to Broaden Their Purpose

Concluding the Journey