Crisis in Haiti: Where Do We Go From Here?
- Jan 26, 2010
- Article is provided courtesy of Wharton School Publishing
From the author of
Learning from Catastrophes: Strategies for Reaction and Response
This article is provided courtesy of Knowledge@Wharton.
The earthquake that rocked Haiti last week has caused unimaginable death and destruction, a reminder to everyone that catastrophes are usually unforeseeable and therefore almost impossible to prepare for. Yet ironically, scientists almost two years ago warned Haiti about an impending major earthquake. The Haitian government lacked the resources to follow up on the report, which raises the question of whether any country or region of the world, rich or poor, can take meaningful steps to avoid the destruction caused by catastrophes of any kind, from earthquakes and hurricanes to terrorist attacks and pandemics. Knowledge@Wharton asked professors Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem, authors of a new book titled Learning from Catastrophes: Strategies for Reaction and Response, and professor Morris A. Cohen, to talk about the challenges of dealing with such crises.
An edited transcript of the conversation follows:
Knowledge@Wharton: Thank you all for joining us.
Howard, let's start with you. As I noted, although scientists predicted an earthquake in this area almost two years ago, the Haitian government was unable to act on the warning. If they had been able to respond, what could they have done?
Howard Kunreuther: That is an excellent question. I think that we are dealing with a situation in Haiti where, as you indicated, poverty has really dominated the scene. So one of the key questions that comes up with this Haitian earthquake is: What could have been done in the way of preparation? You had houses that were really poorly designed. To design better houses requires a great deal of money and resources. It would have been extraordinarily hard for Haiti to have prepared for this without a great deal of assistance from the rest of the world.
Knowledge@Wharton: Mike?
Mike Useem: I would just add the idea that big problematic developments—disasters of one kind or another; hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, rare events that are sometimes referred to as “once in a century”—don't sit at the front of people's consciousness. They are not in front of a legislative body thinking about the budget for this year. We know that these events are out there, the forecasts are there, but one of the great challenges is becoming better at being able to translate an assessment of high-consequence but low-likelihood events into what we do now. [In the case of] Haiti, which is very short on resources, even had they been more aware of [the earthquake warning], and even if they had additional resources, points of intervention weren't feasible. But prior to even thinking about allocating resources to improve housing stock, to bolster construction of schools and the like, it is critical that we find devices to help people in legislatures and executive offices better prepare and plan so that they know how to think about these low-likelihood but hugely-consequential events.
Knowledge@Wharton: Morris, what are the supply chain challenges that relief efforts face in such situations? And are there any lessons that we learned from the tsunami that would have been helpful in Haiti?
Morris Cohen: We are seeing, unfortunately, as this tragedy unfolds that the big bottleneck is essentially a logistics problem, that it is not even a question of shortages of resources. There is lots of drinking water. There is lots of food. But it's impossible to get it to where it is needed. This is an incredibly complicated supply chain problem and we saw the same thing with the tsunami. We've seen it in other natural disasters. The world has recognized this and there have been attempts to develop better response techniques, better deployment—prior deployment—of resources. It is ironic. These events are once in a century, once in two centuries, so we can't predict them. But with certainty they will occur. We have to be prepared.
We don't know where or when they will occur, but we have to deploy resources in advance of them. I think that's a very important issue. Having the right resources, having the right processes in place—even in a more advanced or developed environment—would have been an enormous challenge. In Haiti, it is compounded by the fact that it was already an environment that was hurting in this regard. So the challenges of getting the resources to where they are needed—on time and with the clock ticking—may, unfortunately, become even more difficult before they get easier.
Knowledge@Wharton: What has been the role of the media in showing the extent of this tragedy and also encouraging people to use Twitter and other social media to donate money to the relief effort?
Kunreuther: I think the media always plays a critical role here. In the case of Haiti, what has happened—certainly in the United States; I can't speak about other countries—is that people have been extraordinarily sympathetic. The Obama administration has played a very, very creative and very important leadership role here in getting people to think about things. In the spirit of the comments that Mike and Morris have made, there is this myopia here that we have to at least reflect on. People are willing to give money now. There is an opportunity for large contributions to come from the private sector and hopefully from the government. We are seeing some of that now.
But if it doesn't happen [to a greater extent] in the next few weeks, there will be another crisis that will then dominate the scene, and we are going to be forgetting Haiti in the way that we have forgotten the tsunami and other problems. The problem is in terms of how you are going to deal with the short run, but at the same time try to get large contributions for long-range planning so that Haiti can be in a position where it can really change. I think there is a challenge here, but there is also a tremendous opportunity.
There was a very, very interesting column that David Brooks wrote in terms of poverty and how to deal with it. We need to do things that can really reflect the long run. The media can play an important role here. But keeping it on the media's agenda is going to be extremely difficult after a period of three or four weeks—at least from past experience.
