States Prepare to Meet Crisis with Creativity
If necessity is the mother of invention, crisis may be the father. From the 1970 Apollo 13 accident to the 2011 Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the 2018 Thai cave rescue, creative problem solving has repeatedly averted potential catastrophe. Research shows that this type of creativity is not the product of serendipity — rather, innovation results from careful policy and thoughtful process. In recent years, we have seen governors take important steps to create favorable conditions for emergency invention.
Governors have a unique role in determining how both innovation and emergency management processes are structured within their states. Governors can set a political climate that promotes innovation by instilling agility, responsiveness and design thinking into budget, regulation, policy and intragovernmental relationships, and these paradigms can set their strategy for crisis response.
For example, in the wake of the 2018 wildfire season, California Governor Gavin Newsom acknowledged that outdated procurement systems limited his state’s ability to address pressing challenges with technology. In response, on his first full day in office, he visited the California Office of Emergency Services to issue an executive order allowing his state to create “Innovation Procurement Sprints.” These “sprints” engage state officials and industry partners, scientists, subject matter experts and entrepreneurs to design creative solutions for known problems. This model is a significant change from the former “request for proposal” archetype, where state officials struggled to quickly understand a problem well enough to define specific project requirements. Gov. Newsom explained that this adjustment will allow California to be more innovative in its approach to challenges like wildfire detection.
This approach is neither limited to California nor to natural disasters. In his 2019 State of the State address, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson announced his intent to establish a Technology and Innovation Council for industry leaders and technology entrepreneurs to work toward solutions on cybersecurity. In her 2019 State of the State address, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem described her plan to expand broadband access by deploying 5G technologies. This expansion is likely to spur innovation by attracting top talent to the area, while ensuring residents are connected to creativity across the world. Second, this modern communications infrastructure will support the implementation of crisis management technologies, including FirstNet.
Is innovation a substitute for preparedness? Hardly so. Two decades of intentional investment in disaster planning and preparedness have greatly expanded the envelope of emergencies that can be considered “routine.” But as our world continues to grow more complex, true crises are becoming more frequent and underscore the need for innovation as a complement to preparedness. Incidents such as the 2009 Chilean mine rescue, the 2011 Japanese triple disaster and the 2014 Ebola outbreak produced such unique challenges that they could not have been addressed by existing plans and resources. They required keen innovation and courageous leadership to overcome the intricate complications presented by novel circumstances. The need for innovation extends beyond emergency response and into disaster recovery, as Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló knows well. At the end of 2018, he published his territory’s plan for recovery from Hurricane Maria, in which he stated his intent to implement innovation wherever possible in recovery and to develop the island as a “platform for innovation” more generally.
States are pivoting to innovation to adapt to the “new normal” posed by more frequent, more intense disasters. Infrastructure failures, wildfires, tornadoes, hazardous materials spills and hurricanes regularly cause significant damage to major community assets, and states are struggling to recover from the onslaught. The capital and financial losses are staggering: In the 2017 disaster season alone, 137 federally declared emergencies caused more than $306 billion dollars of damage in the United States, making it the costliest year on record. At the current rate, disasters have the potential to destroy communities — both physically and financially — which creates a secondary economic emergency that will bring additional ruin. New strategies are needed to avert these eventualities, and states are innovating to ensure the safety and prosperity of their communities.
Lauren Stienstra is a program director in Homeland Security and Public Safety at the National Governors Association.
