designing for disaster relief

8/8/2019 Designing for Disaster Relief

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Tis report is an examination o the logistical and architectural responses that have been enactedby governments and non-government organizations (NGOs) in the wake o catastrophic emergen-cies throughout the world. Dened as “a natural or manmade hazard that has come to ruition”, di-sasters are always characterized by widespread physical destruction and chaos. Whether naturalor manmade, disaster agents are the precipitating events that lead to this great loss o lie, physical

property, and livelihoods. In addition to the the death and destruction that results directly romsuch events, disaster agents have a lasting eect on survivors, exposing the vulnerability o a groupor groups in such a way that their ability to live is directly threatened. Te report will begin with adiscussion o the logistics o relie as administered by major aid organizations, ollowed by speci-ic case studies o historic and contemporary disaster relie strategies and an assessment o their suc-cesses and ailures. Te conclusion will be a discussion o the role that media plays in relie eortsand how developed societies are instrumental in deploying assistance to disaster victims. Going be-

yond a simple taxonomy o the tent cities and trailer parks that crop up in the wake o hurricanes

and earthquakes, I will seek to demonstrate that the logistics o relie delivery are the most criticaldeterminant o success in disaster relie situations, in terms o lives saved and qualities o lie restored.

by Michael James Casey, December 8, 2010

We are living in an era when inormation hasbecome the top commodity to control, withsearch engines and twenty our hour newscycles to enable constant streams o data andmedia. When disasters occur these days, im-ages o the destruction and stories directly romthe source are available instantaneously, whichdraws an initial spike in the world’s attentionto the plight o a population in some remotecorner o the globe. Although this initial peakin concern rom those in the developed worldcompels international aid organizations to co-ordinate relie eorts, in any disaster situation

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the ultimate responsibility or deploying assistance lies with the stricken nation7.

Whether or not outside intervention isappropriate or a nation’s relie eorts islargely determined by the scale o the disaster,and the international community cannot evenbegin provide aid to disaster victims withoutthe specic request o the recipient govern-ment. While it can be assumed that the poorerthe country the more likely it is to be lacking indisaster planning and preventative measures11,a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina provesthat rich, highly developed nations can also all

Designing or Disaster Relie

Te Logistics o Relie



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short in providing their citizens the most basiclie requirements in the wake o great destruction.

Te reasons or ailure do not result rom a lacko available resources, but rather rom the ailureo the many vested interests - multiple levels o government and NGOs - to communicate with

each other and eectively coordinate the de- ployment o ood, temporary shelters, and otherraw relie materials. Weaknesses in the manage-ment o human capital within organizationslike the United Nations, Red Cross, UNESCO,Unice, Oxam can result in errors and short-comings in the distribution o relie goods andservices to victims7. Because each o these en-tities operates independently, their methodso implementation and operational policies

vary and may even conict with each other.

Te rst step in the disaster planning processis determining the capacity o a population tomeet their most basic needs o ood, shelter, andsanitation. In most large-scale disasters, there isa great need or external assistance, and manyemergency programs are imposed on disaster-aected communities that suer rom a lack o involvement or concern by the aected popula-tion and other stakeholders3. Te delivery o dry

oodstus, blankets, clothing, and bottled wateris a airly straightorward act o repeated dispen-sation at crucial locations, but providing shortand long term shelter or displaced populationsthat are scattered over many miles is a respon-sibility that requires substantially more money,raw materials, and logistical consideration. Temost common causes o death in reugee campchildren is diarrhea and pneumonia, caused by

viruses ound in contaminated drinking water3.Tereore, sanitary bathing quarters are alwaysan imperative requirement or relie architec-ture, with access to clean water and proper drain-age inrastructure a crucial determinant o thehygiene and overall quality o lie in relie camps.

Te ollowing is a series o case studies orseveral dierent historic and contemporarydisasters, and their relie management strategies.

San Francisco Earthquake, 1906

Owing to its proximity to a major seismic aultline, San Francisco has a long history o con-tending with and preparing or earthquakes. Temost destructive quake to ever strike the cityoccurred on the morning o April 18, 1906,

and resulted in substantial building loss anda widespread conagration that claimed over3,000 lives. Government intervention in relie or this early twentieth century disaster con-sisted o the construction 5,600 housing unitsin city parks, with costs varying rom $100 to$700 each. Tese temporary settlements werebuilt by union carpenters, and were gradu-ally transported out o the camps as rebuilding

progressed, eventually providing many theopportunity to own their rst homes. Within

three years o the quake, 20,000 permanent build-ings had been reconstructed, representing animpressive 70% o the buildings destroyed1. Teswi pace o San Francisco’s recovery aer the1906 quake points to the nation’s growing pros-

perity and the city’s strategic location as a com-mercial port or the Pacic coast, and presents astark contrast to the pace o relie seen more re-cently in the Gul Coast aer Hurricane Katrina.

Bam Earthquake, Iran, 2003

Tis 6.6 magnitude quake struck near the Bamsettlement, in the Kerman province o easternIran on December 26, 2003, killing over 25,000

people. Within days o the disaster a populationo 125,000 had been placed in temporary tents,

provided swily by the Iranian Red CrescentSociety (IRCS), which coordinated closely with



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local provincial governments in tent distribu-tion and placement2. Most amilies that owneda house preerred to stay within walking distanceo their property, even when all that was le wasrubble. Te most common complaint among members o the population was the lack o toiletsand showers, making the construction o these

acilities a top priority or the IRCS relie eorts.

Te authorities in charge o relie eorts inBam considered using preabricated sanitationmodules in public places to meet these needs,but aid agencies rarely selected this option dueto expense and the constant need or mainte-nance o public acilities2. Instead o shipping inelaborate manuactured trailers, the rst wave o relie workers relied on local and readily avail-

able materials such as wooden or lightweightmetal poles, cloths, traps, and sheets o plywoodto satisy the sanitary requirements o victims.Tese rudimentary relie acilities consisted o ameter deep hole in the ground, lled with bricksor wastewater drainage rom showers, andcovered by boards supporting a metal “squat-ting plate” or toilets2. Predictably, the Iranian

women were reluctant to use these temporaryshowers due to the lack o privacy they aorded.

In this situation, Oxam was unique among theother aid organizations in its choice o relie ar-chitecture. Instead o preabricated trailers, Ox-am’s program consisted o constructing or repar-ing toilets and showers in the villages outside thecity, opting or brick structures built with localmaterials and labor. Te remains o standing butheavily damaged masonry buildings were utilizedto their ullest extent aer repair and seismic rein-orcement2. Builders o the new bathing and liv-ing acilities used a traditional material palette o clay bricks and limestone oundations, but with

walls and roos as light as possible and thickercolumns. Showers were built with 13 inch thickcolumns and brick arched roos topped with clayand reinorced with steel beams, providing ex-cellent thermal insulation and privacy or users2.Due to wide amiliarity with the constructiontype, local masons were capable o replicating

these structures airly easily, greatly aiding inrelie implementation and improvement inthe quality o lie or displaced populations.

Kashimir Earthquake, Pakistan, 2005

Tis magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck northernPakistan on October 8, 2005, aecting neigh-boring India and Aghanistan and causing thedeaths o over 75,000 people. Leaders o relie eorts or this particular disaster suered ma-

jor challenges in coordination, mainly by rely-ing on a cluster approach that divided victimneeds and human resources into ten categories(shelter, ood/nutrition, sanitation, commu-nication, etc.) without an overall implementa-tion plan or central governing body. Several

international agency networks operated witha measure o autonomy in needs assessment,

procurement, distribution, and reporting 5. In or-der to distribute the vast quantities o construc-tion materials needed or reconstruction, approx-imately ninety dierent aid distribution agenciesasked the UN Joint Logistics Center to helpcoordinate the movements o their cargo. Teextremely rugged topography o the Kashimirmade transportation capacity along narrowmountain roads a signicant relie constraint.

On top o transportation challenges, hundredso private aid organizations operating alongsidemultiple levels o government lead to egregiousoverlaps and disparities in aid distribution. Forexample, the Pakistani military and health clus-ter o NGOs both constructed eld hospitalsaccording to their own independent assessments,



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Te preparations and response o FEMA in thecase o Katrina ell ar short o the expectationsor such a developed nation. With the mediamachine spinning ull throttle on the story o the storm and its devastating impacts, it wasimpossible not to see how Katrina dispropor-tionately impacted the black community that

had called the low-lying wards their home.Because o sedimentary deposits along the Mis-sissippi River, valuable riverront propertiesin New Orleans tend to be elevated comparedto less valuable properties urther inland, asa result, there was a concentration o low-in-come populations in the lowest-lying areas1.

It would be unair to judge government disas-ter relie and resource allocation based on racial

actors that preceded a disaster, but the actremains that ve years later the predomi-nantly black and low income neighborhoodsstill contain wide swaths o ood ravagedhomes, while the more auent districts thatooded have mostly been restored. Te decrepitstate o many properties in the Lower Ninth

Ward owes to a lack o private reconstructionunds, partially because many insurance com-

panies won’t cover ood damage, contend-ing that the hurricane and its subsequent e-

ects were not a “wind-driven occurrence”1.

Haiti Earthquake, 2010

As an island country with a long history o pov-erty and injustice, Haiti was the last nation in the

western hemisphere that could handle a calami-tous earthquake like the one that occurred on

January 12, 2010. Te epicenter o this magni-tude 7.0 earthquake was just miles outside o thecapital city, Port-au-Prince, and resulted in the in-stantaneous collapse o hundreds o thousands o buildings and a staggering loss o lie within them.

Within hours o the quake, relie camps natural-ly ormed as dazed survivors sought shelter araway rom buildings and walls. Te millions o suddenly homeless occupied streets, empty lots,

playgrounds. schoolyards, soccer elds, plazas, parks, and Haiti’s only gol course. Inthe absence o any authority during the quake’simmediate aermath, survivors ormed theirown security brigades, while doctors set upimpromptu clinics to treat the injured6.

Te unprecented scope and widely broadcastimages o destruction soon resulted in an out-

pouring o support or Haiti rom the interna-tional community. As a number o well-heeledrelie organizations lined up to help, logisticalconicts ensued between these aid entities andthe U.S. military, which had seized control o thePort-au-Prince airport and was giving priority totroop and heavy equipment deployments rather

than ood and clothing 6. Additionally, many aidorganizations would only conduct ood distribu-tion in the presence o armed troops, an ultimate-ly ineective means o controlling the melee thatoen characterizes reugee ood distribution.

Most o the ofcial plans or rebuilding Haiticall or decentralization and re-investment inagriculture. Te government is encouraging the 600,000 people who ed devastated Port-au-Prince or the countryside to stay there6.Although Haiti was able to produce the bulko its own ood or consumption just thir-ty years ago, previous military juntas which

were supported by the U.S. government haveshied the country toward consuming importedcheaper rice and beans rom America, undercut-ting the native armers’ ability to compete anddecimating a once vital agricultural economy6.



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population back on its eet, the solutions todisaster displacement go ar beyond monetarydonations. Te physical design o relie camps,

provisions or sanitary inrastructure, and logis-tical coordination o many vested interests arethe most crucial determinants o success or ail-

ure in mitigating despair in the wake o sharedtragedies.

Reerences

1. Tomas Craemer, “Evaluating Racial Disparities in Hurricane Katrina Relie Using Direct railerCounts in New Orleans and FEMA Records”, Public Administration Review. May/June 2010. 367 –377. Accessed December 2, 2010.

2. Jean-Francois Pinera, Robert A. Reed, Cyrus Njiru, “Restoring sanitation services aer an earthquake:eld experience in Bam, Iran”, Disasters. Volume 29, Issue 3. September 29, 2005. 222 – 236. AccessedNovember 5, 2010.

3. Peter A. Harvey, “Planning environmental sanitation programmes in emergencies”, Disasters. Volume29, Issue 2. May 23, 2005. 129 – 149. Accessed 2 December 2010.

4. Belinda Creel Davis, Valentina A. Bali, “Examining the Role o Race, NIMBY, and Local Politics in

FEMA railer Park Placement”, Social Science Quarterly. Volume 89, Number 5. December 5, 2008.1176 – 1194. Accessed December 2, 2010.

5. Aldo Benini, Charles Conley, Brody Dittemore, Zachary Waksman, “Survivor needs or logisticalconvenience? Factors shaping decisions to deliver relie to earthquake-aected communities, Pakistan2005-6”, Disasters. Volume 27, Issue 4. October 30, 2006. Accessed November 5, 2010.

6. Reed Lindsay, “Haiti’s Excluded: How the earthquake aid regime sidelines those it is supposed tohelp”, Te Nation. March 29, 2010. 18 – 22. Accessed November 9, 2010.

7. Esther K. Hicks, Gregory Pappas, “Coordinating Disaster Relie Aer the South Asia Earthquake”,

Society. July/August 2006. 42 – 50. Accessed November 9, 2010.

8. Garry Pierre-Pierre, “Living under tents: Haitians brace themselves or rainy season”, Te New YorkAmsterdam News. February 25-March 3, 2010. 2. Accessed December 2, 2010.

9. Naomi Pollock, “Shigeru Ban Aims to Build Waterproo Shelters in Haiti”, Architectural Record On-line. May 11, 2010. Accessed November 21, 2010. <http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/2010/100511shigeru_ban_shelters.asp >



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10. Jonathan Benthall, Disasters, Relie, and the Media. New York. I.B. auris & Co. Ltd. Publishers. ©1993. 1 – 40.

11. Randolph C. Kent, Anatomy o Disaster Relie: Te International Network in Action. London.Pinter Publishers Ltd. © 1987. 1 – 68.

Image Sources

Page 1: http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article95870.ece

Page 2: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/sci_nat_san_rancisco_earth-quake___1906/html/1.stm

Page 3: http://news.in.msn.com/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=3482069&page=11

Page 4 (lef):http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/dispatches/050901-01.html

Page 4 (right): http://www.daylie.com/photo/058ZbO2wO154

Page 5: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Haiti-Earthquake-Diary/2010/0125/Haiti-earthquake-diary-Te-lives-within-the-tent-cities

Page 6: http://www.shigerubanarchitects.com/SBA_WORKS/SBA_PAPER/SBA_PAPER_6/SBA_ paper_6.html

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