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Conference Chairman:
Councilman Greig Smith
Platinum Sponsor
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
- Megacities and Earthquakes: an L.A. Story
- Life Line Security
- Methods of Preparedness
- Land Use Planning in a Seismic City
- Legislative Process
- How to Deal with What You Have
- Earthquake Technology in Disaster Management
- Creating the Great ShakeOut
Thursday, November 13, 2008
- Science of the ShakeOut
- Field trips to various locations to experience the Great Southern California ShakeOut
- “Share Fair” to exchange information with the various cities present
- Earthquake Technology: Early Warning & Prediction
- Gala Dinner
Friday, November 14, 2008
- Communicating Messages of Preparedness
- Economic & Business Recovery
- Community Resiliency
- Medical Response & recovery
- Disaster Risk Financing
more...
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Friday, November 14, 2008 @ 9:45am
Session 3A: Economic/Business Recovery
Recovering from an earthquake is more than just physical reconstruction. The damage to the economy and the business sector can turn a disaster into a catastrophe. This session will look at how businesses prepare and recover from earthquakes and present ways to mitigate long-term economic impacts.
Moderator: Ines Pearce, President, Pearce Global Partners
Dr. Louise Comfort, Pittsburgh University, Presentation
Dr. Adam Rose, Research Professor, University of Southern California, Presentation
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Business Resilience to Earthquakes: Lessons from the ShakeOut
by Adam Rose, Research Professor, SPPD, University of Southern California
Co-authors Anne Wein, Operations Research Analyst,U.S. Geological Survey
Economic resilience represents a major way of reducing losses from disasters and of ensuring business survival. It has several time dimensions. In the short-term, it represents actions to use remaining resources as effectively as possible. In the medium-term it means speeding recovery through repair and reconstruction. In the long-term it involves planning to incorporate mitigation and to enhance future resilience. This presentation will summarize the economic loss estimates for the ShakeOut scenario, how they are influenced by resilience practices in place today, and how they can be further reduced by enhancing resilience in the long-run. Short-term resilience options, such as the conservation of critical inputs, business relocation and production rescheduling, have the ability to reduce business interruption losses by more than 50%. These may mean the difference in the survival of many firms. Long-term resilience strategies, such as emergency planning, back-up facilities, flexible production technologies and enhanced labor skills can reduce losses even more. |
Assessing the Costs/Benefits of Disaster Reduction Policies: Lessons from Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike and their Impact on the Gulf Coast
by Louise K. Comfort
Co-authors Namkyung Oh, Steve Scheinert, Gunes Ertan
Public policies create the framework within which disaster events occur. These policies may systematically operate to mitigate disaster and reduce the burden of costs to a community exposed to recurring risk, or, conversely, hinder disaster risk reduction by focusing on short term priorities, increasing the long-term costs to the community, region, and nation. Most critical are the hidden costs implicit when public policies create a ‘moral hazard’ that serves the immediate interest of a few at the long-term cost to the community. This presentation examines the costs and benefits to disaster mitigation and economic recovery from public investment in building an effective information infrastructure for the region at risk. The costs include not only the initial investment in information technologies, but also the time, attention, and training needed to develop professional competency to use these technologies in agencies and organizations that have responsibilities for disaster risk reduction. The benefits, however, cumulate over years of use, as personnel become more proficient in assessing risks to their respective communities and adapt their actions and operations accordingly. Such communities become self-organizing and adaptive in managing disaster risk at a lower cost. This analysis draws upon data from recent hurricanes on the Gulf Coast.
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