Catastrophic
Disasters:
Confronting Novel
Preparedness
Challenges
Arnold M. Howitt, Ph.D.
Executive Director,
The Roy and Lila Ash Center for
Democratic Governance and Innovation
andFaculty Co-Director,
Program on Crisis Leadership
Harvard Kennedy School
July 23, 2012

Presentation Outline• The Threat of “Landscape-Scale” Disasters• A Continuum of Emergency Types– Routine Emergencies– Sudden and Emergent Crises– Catastrophes• What is Excellent Response for Each Type?
• Becoming Effective in TWO Modes of Emergency
Response
The ideas presented today are the product of a close
collaboration with my Harvard colleague,
Prof. Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt and Herman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

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The Great East Japan Earthquake –March 2011

BP Fire and Gulf of Mexico
Oil Leak – 2010

The Threat of“Landscape-Scale” Disasters
Catastrophes that severely affect large geographic
areas in many inter-locking societal dimensions –including life safety, community, economy,environment, politics, governance, and cultureIncreasing Disaster Danger• In the 21st century, landscape-scale disasters
are becoming more frequent and a greaterthreat to humanity.
– Larger, more concentrated populations are located inareas of substantial exposure to risk
– Increasingly complex and interconnected humansystems are highly vulnerable to disruption– Technology vulnerability magnifies the danger ofnatural disasters– Climate change threatens to increase the number ofnatural disasters – and intensify their impact
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt and Herman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

6

Recent Examples ofLandscape-Scale Disasters• The Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami, andnuclear accident (2011)• BP fire and oil spill in the US (2010)• Pakistan floods (2010)• Haiti’s Earthquake (2010)• South China blizzards (2008)• China’s Wenchuan earthquake (2008)• Hurricane Katrina in the US (2005)• Indian Ocean tsunami (2004)
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

7

Disaster prevention andmitigation are cruciallyimportant.
But catastrophes will
sometimes happen despite
our best efforts.

8

How can society better prepare
itself to react to and manage
these devastating events?

Let’s start by thinking
systematically about how theydiffer from emergencies that
happen more regularly
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A Continuum:
Normal Operations to Emergencies

NORMALOPERATIONS

Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

10

A Continuum:
Normal Operations to Emergencies

NORMALOPERATIONSMINOROPERATING
PROBLEMS

Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

11Placing Emergencies in the Continuum
EMERGENCIESNORMALOPERATIONSMINOROPERATING
PROBLEMS

Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

ROUTINE
EMERGENCIES

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Routine Emergencies
Characteristics:• Sudden, unplanned• High stakes• Urgent• Outcomes will vary
widely depending ondecisions/actions• General types ofroutine emergencies
can be anticipated
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

Actions:• Before: Develop
contingency plans andorganize• During: Recognize
emergency type andexecute plans, adapting
them to fit the precise
circumstances
13What Constitutes
Excellence inRoutine Emergencies?
Preparedness:• Robust set ofcontingency plans• Clarity of goals andpriorities• People:

Response: Recognize & Act• High situational awareness;
responders know what tolook for• Confidence in purposesand capabilities• Executable checklist ofSOPs to match/adapt tothe situation– Training– Skills– Exercises/Practice– Real operational
experience
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

14

What Constitutes
Excellence inRoutine Emergencies?
Leadership:• Expertise-driven• Leaders chosen forskills, effectiveness inprior experiences• High authority andcompliance• Centralized
responsibility andaccountability
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

Hierarchical Decisionmaking and Command

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Crises on the Continuum
EMERGENCIESNORMALOPERATIONSMINOROPERATING
PROBLEMSROUTINE
EMERGENCIESCRISES

Two typesof crisis

Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

16

Type 1: Sudden Crises
EMERGENCIESNORMALOPERATIONSMINOROPERATING
PROBLEMSROUTINE
EMERGENCIESCRISESType 1:3.11
InJapanCopyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

SuddenCrises17

Type 2: Emergent Crises
EMERGENCIESNORMALOPERATIONSMINOROPERATING
PROBLEMS

ThreeMile
IslandNuclear
Plant inUSA
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

ROUTINE
EMERGENCIESCRISESType 2:

EmergentCrises

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Sudden vs. Emergent Crisis
Emergent
CrisisSeverityof theEvent

SuddenCrisisRoutineEmergencies

NormalOperations

Time
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

CrisesCharacteristics:• Sudden, unplanned• High stakes• Urgent• Outcomes will varydepending on
decisions/actions• Significant elementsof NOVELTY• Great uncertainty,
low situationalawareness
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

• Fear/high stress• Lack of control• Beyond usual
operational capacities• Predeterminedactions may beinsufficient or
counter-productive• Goals and priorities
may not be clear• Potential for politicalconflict
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The Nature of “Novelty”• Novelty arises in several ways:– “New under the sun” – an unprecedented
challenge, something never before encounteredby responders.
– Extraordinary scale: An emergency far larger
than what we have prepared to handle.
– A combination of emergencies not expected tooccur together.

• Novelty is a subjective concept: new for thejurisdiction, organizations, or responders
experiencing it – but not necessarily for theworld.
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

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Critical Challenges of Novelty• Recognizing novelty/developing
situational awareness– Novelty is difficult to see if you don’t knowwhat to look for• Aum Shinrikyo sarin attack in 1995

– Novelty conflicts with our current
understanding and is thus easy to explainaway– Many people know a little, so the problem isaggregating, analyzing, and sense-making
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

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Critical Challenges of Novelty (2)• Designing an effective response– What do we do when no one knows what to do?
– No one is an expert on all aspects of theproblem– Situation demands improvisation, invention,innovation– Requires collaboration, not command– No one has trained or practiced

Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

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The demands of effective
leadership and response in“crises” differ substantiallyfrom what is required for“routine emergencies”

24What Constitutes Excellence inCrisis Response?
Context of Response:• No comprehensive plan
• No executable checklistof SOPs
• No one is an expert on
all aspects of thesituation• Situational awareness isvery poor
• Need to sort out goals
and priorities
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

Actions:• Before: Develop skills
in problem diagnosis,improvisation,communication, andcollaboration• During: Learn & Adapt• Understand• Design: Improvise,innovate• Execute25

What Constitutes Excellence inCrisis Response? (2)• Effective workto accomplish:• Ethical – sorting
out, reconcilingvalues• Descriptive –establishing an
operating picture• Creative –developing
viable options
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

• Predictive –what will happen
under alternate
scenarios ofaction?
• Political –consensus
building• Decision-making• Implementationof selectedoptions
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What Constitutes Excellence in
Crisis Response? (3)• Variable decision making andimplementation structure, using principles
of unified command
Flattened, consultativestructure for diagnosis anddecisions. Not all stakeholders
are part of the sameorganizational system

Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

More hierarchicalfor execution

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A Continuum:
Landscape-Scale Disasters
EMERGENCIESNORMALOPERATIONSMINOROPERATING
PROBLEMS

Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

ROUTINE
EMERGENCIESCRISESCATASTROPHES
orLANDSCAPESCALEDISASTERS

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Catastrophic Crises
Characteristics:

Need capacity to operate:• When novelty is abundant.
• All of the features ofcrises, PLUS ultra high- • When goals and priorities areambiguous or contested.
profile politics:• When new response approaches• Even more
and methods are needed.
stakeholders in• When authority alone isgovernment andinsufficient and thus
outsidecollaboration and persuasion arenecessary.
• Multi-agency decisionmaking environment • When response must be
implemented without• Great media attention
opportunity to practice29

The Special Challenges ofEmergent Crises• Why are emergent crises problematic?
– Difficult to spot. Where does the “break” in normal
operating experience occur? How to distinguish normal
variation from something “new”?
– Organizations are already deployed and working on theproblem from the “routine emergency” perspective.
Training/experience reinforce this orientation.
– The initial responders – sent because of their ability inroutine emergencies – may ignore disconfirming
information and be resistant to adapting or abandoning“tried and true” methods. Impacts of “cognitive bias.”– Personal and career incentives may make it difficult forleaders to reverse course.
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

Response organizations thus
need to operate effectively in
two modes:
In “routine emergencies”(which represent at least 98%of what they do) and in the farless common “crises” and“catastrophes”
31But can organizations
optimized to respond to“routine emergencies” also
effectively recognize and deal
with the novelty of crisis
situations?

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A Bias Toward Preparing for
Routine Emergencies• Our thinking about operating in all emergency
situations is captive to our experience andsuccess in dealing with routine emergencies.
• Our techniques of preparedness are skewed inthis direction, as exemplified by:– Risk assessment for known dangers– Contingency planning for identified risks– Scenario- and plan-based training/exercises– After-action reports and adjustments for “lessonslearned” from past experience
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

33

Highly Valuable…But Insufficient• Preparing for anticipatable
emergencies for which society
has not yet gotten ready is atremendously worthwhile
endeavor.
– Example: SARS, the threat ofbird flu, and concern about
pandemic infectious diseases
encouraged measures that
greatly helped deal with H1N1.

• But it is not enough.
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

34

Are We Fully Preparing forCatastrophic Crises?
• Society may be under-preparing for the verykinds of threats that are becoming increasingly –and dangerously – common:– We don’t sufficiently appreciate the need tooperate differently in crisis situations.
– We may miss or delay in recognizing the novelty ofcrisis circumstances– We therefore apply the approach, thinking,processes, and tactics of routine emergencies tocrisis situations.
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

35

How can we prepare for the“unknown unknowns” thatshape crises?
What can we do to get readyfor types of events that wecannot anticipate?
36Preparing for Novelty• Diversification of information sources andcommunication channels – local andremote – to establish situational awareness• Personal and organizational efforts to lookfor novelty – e.g., incident action planning,
Team B, social media• Capabilities-based planning in addition tothreat-based planning
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

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Preparing for Novelty (2)• Practice in “flattened” decision making
systems – “inquiry” vs. “advocacy” in groupprocesses• Robust systems of coordination – e.g., IMS,
unified command – that cut acrossorganizations• Cross-organizational, jurisdictional, andsectoral exercises• Engagement of 2nd and 3rd circle oforganizational stakeholders
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

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Preparing for Novelty (3)• Surge capacity for massive or long-lived
events• Integration of private and NGO sectors intocrisis planning and exercising• Clarification of roles of emergency
professionals and political leaders.
• Constructive engagement of skills andcompetences of each
Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt andHerman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

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Disaster Consequences
Are Stark….

Wenchuan Earthquake in China (2008)

The Human Costs
Can Be Very High ….

The Stakes Are High….

Preparedness Can
Make a Difference….

Thank you!
Arnold M. Howitt, Ph.D
Executive Director, Ash Center for Democratic
Governance and Innovation, andFaculty Co-Director,
Program on Crisis Leadership, at

Harvard Kennedy School

Arnold_Howitt@Harvard.Edu