The previous LOTRW post left this question hanging: Why, in the aftermath of natural disasters, do we simply rebuild as before – in the same way, and on the same land – when this perpetuates losses and human suffering?
On its surface, the question seems particularly poignant when compared with the positive experience of the commercial aviation sector, which has seen striking benefits from its tradition of learning from mistakes, and its mantra after each disaster: This must never happen again. Commercial air travel is nearly 100 times safer than it was in the 1960’s.
What accounts for this dichotomy?
The reasons are several. In part, the differences stem from the divergence in the sheer size of the sunk costs and pre-existing investment. The lifetime of the aviation fleet is something like 20-30 years. Estimates are that the industry will invest $3T or more in new planes over such a period. That seems like a lot. But the value of the world’s tangible assets is some one hundred times greater – perhaps $300T. Furthermore, in contrast to the turnover rate for aircraft, some 80% of the world’s current building stock (including a large fraction in housing) is expected to still be around in 2050. Vulnerabilities in the world’s building stock arising from construction or location are expensive to correct.
The disparity in dollars and time frames is reinforced by similarly strong human psychological, emotional, social, and even spiritual attachment to place. When people choose where to live and work, and raise families, safety considerations with respect to natural hazards often take a back seat to job markets, living costs, preexisting family or social ties, and day-to-day quality of life. In the same way, when corporate leaders select the location of a new factory or business, they tend to seek strong labor pools, reliable infrastructure, favorable tax policies and regulatory frameworks, and access to markets, finding these more salient than a community or state’s climate-, weather-, and seismic risks.
When natural hazards finally do hit, they drive up insurance costs and pummel property values. This can be true even if their risks are recognized and acknowledged. Policymakers and business leaders alike therefore find that making actuarially-sound hazard resilience decisions is increasingly fraught, especially given today’s rise of populism and polarized politics. What’s more, in the past, Americans used to pride themselves on helping the less fortunate. Local leaders could expect national-level help in recovery. But the rising cost of disasters is leading to sticker-shock and to delays or even public reluctance to pay at all. (An example: while I was writing an earlier draft of this this, President Biden was seeking a $100B to fund recent hurricane relief needs. The timing of this request – during a transition between administrations – Is particularly inopportune.) Americans can expect even larger bills to come due in future years.
By contrast, travelers invest little sentiment in choosing an airline. Safety comes first; cost, comfort and convenience trump any love for a particular carrier or equipment. Boeing’s experience with its 737-MAX aircraft provides a cautionary tale.
Aggravating the problems posed by the scale of the natural hazard problem and its accompanying social attachment to people and place is its sheer complexity and fuzziness. Most of the aviation safety issues are clear-cut matters of engineering and materials science – the performance of metals, carbon fiber, and other materials in response to thermal and mechanical stresses over extended periods of time. The major social factors are limited in comparison – primarily involving pilots and air traffic controllers – a select segment of the general population, and highly trained for specific tasks – operating under relatively restricted conditions. The influence of weather is short-term, relatively well observed and predicted, and communicated in crisp clear language to those impacted[1].
By contrast, community resilience with respect to natural hazards is determined by the interplay of politics and economics, involving broad populations, often unaware or oblivious to natural hazard risks, highly mobile, moving into and out of communities on time frames short compared with the risk incidence. In addition, vulnerability of the built environment and critical infrastructure to any natural hazards is poorly understood, relative to the wide variety of possible hazard presentations and their unique particularities to individual communities.
One final sticking point – possibly the most important difference between the natural-hazard and aviation-safety challenges – is the uncertain time factor for the former. The aviation community can reasonably estimate the lifetime of an aircraft mainframe, or significant components, such as a jet engine, based on flight hours, numbers of takeoffs and landings, duty cycles, and other factors. Calculating the return-on-investment (and optimization and scheduling) of maintenance and equipment replacement is routine.
But droughts and floods, hurricane landfall, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions provide little advance notice yet can compromise the futures of settlements and economies in their paths for years or even decades. Consider this hypothetical comparison: a sizable capital investment made in Asheville North Carolina in the 1990’s with a 30-year payout versus a similar investment made in 2023. The former would have recouped the expected return; the latter, not. Yet the risk outlook during the period of the decisions were made would have looked little different. In 2023, who saw Helene’s devastation coming?
In the face of that large – and largely unresolvable – uncertainty, what to do? Is it possible to do better than simply hope to muddle through? More in the next post.
[1]The NTSB has extensively studied social factors such as crew resource management, The Flight Safety Foundation and others have focused on safety problems posed by language on international flights.