Overview of the disaster recovery process. According to the Department of Homeland Security’s National Response Framework, once immediate lifesaving activities are complete after a major disaster, the focus shifts to assisting individuals, households, critical infrastructure, and businesses in meeting basic needs and returning to self-sufficiency. Even as the immediate imperatives for response to an incident are being addressed, the need to begin recovery operations emerges. The emphasis on response gradually gives way to recovery operations. During the recovery phase, actions are taken to help individuals, communities, and the nation return to normal. The National Response Framework characterizes disaster recovery as having two phases: short-term recovery and long-term recovery. Short-term recovery is immediate and an extension of the response phase in which basic services and functions are restored. It includes actions such as providing essential public health and safety services, restoring interrupted utility and other essential services, reestablishing transportation routes, and providing food and shelter for those displaced by the incident. Although called short-term, some of these activities may last for weeks. Long-term recovery may involve some of the same actions as short- term recovery but may continue for a number of months or years, depending on the severity and extent of the damage sustained. It involves restoring both the individual and the community, including the complete redevelopment of damaged areas. Some examples of long- term recovery include providing permanent disaster-resistant housing units to replace those destroyed, initiating a low-interest façade loan program for the portion of the downtown area that sustained damage from the disaster, and initiating a buyout of flood-prone properties and designating them community open space. As the President has previously noted, state and local leaders have the primary role in planning for recovery efforts. Under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (Stafford Act), the federal government is authorized to provide assistance to those jurisdictions in carrying out their responsibilities to alleviate suffering and damage which results from disasters. In general under the Stafford Act, the federal role is to assist state and local governments—which have the primary role with regard to recovery efforts. In major disasters where the event overwhelms the capacity of state and local governments, the federal government can offer more assistance to supplement the efforts and available resources of states, local governments, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering caused by the disaster. After a major disaster, the federal government may provide unemployment assistance; food coupons to low-income households; and repair, restoration, and replacement of certain damaged facilities, among other things. For example, the city of New Orleans estimated this April that the federal government will provide over $15 billion for the rebuilding of the city through numerous disaster assistance programs, including FEMA’s Public Assistance Grant Program and Community Disaster Loan program, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grants program. Nevertheless, state and local governments have the main responsibility of applying for, receiving, and implementing federal assistance. Further, they make decisions about what priorities and projects the community will undertake for recovery. Impact of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike made landfall in the Gulf Coast this month, resulting in federal major disaster declarations for 95 counties in Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama (see fig. 1). Gustav made landfall near Cocodrie, Louisiana, as a category 2 hurricane on September 1, 2008. Ike made landfall as a category 2 hurricane near Galveston, Texas, on September 13, 2008. These hurricanes have caused widespread damage to affected Gulf Coast states. For example, the state of Louisiana has confirmed 10 Gustav-related deaths. Recent press accounts have attributed the death of about 50 people in the United States to Hurricane Ike. Further, Hurricanes Gustav and Ike have significantly disrupted utility service as well as oil and natural gas production in the Gulf Coast. Specifically, Gustav caused power outages for over 1.1 million Louisiana and Mississippi customers, while over 2.2 million customers in Texas lost power after Ike made landfall. The hurricanes have also affected oil and natural gas production in the Gulf Coast. Most of the refineries in Gustav’s path were affected, resulting in a 100 percent reduction in crude oil production. Almost all refineries in Ike’s path shut down, halting crude oil production in the area by 99.9 percent. Over half of the 39 major natural gas processing plants in the affected areas have ceased operations as a result of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, reducing the total operating capacity of the region by 65 percent. Given the recent landfall of these hurricanes, comprehensive damage assessments from government agencies were not available at the time of this report’s issuance. Impact of the 2008 Midwest Floods. Heavy rainfall across much of the northern half of the Great Plains during early June 2008 resulted in river flooding. This flooding became increasingly severe as heavy rain continued into the second week of June and rising rivers threatened dams and levees and submerged large areas of farmland along with many cities and towns. As a result, the President issued federal major disaster declarations for counties in seven states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin (see fig. 2). The flooding resulted in widespread damage for some communities in these states. For example, the rivers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, crested over 30 feet, flooding 10 square miles of the city and displacing over 18,000 people and several city facilitates, including the city hall, police department, and fire station. The flooding also affected agricultural production in these states. For example, the state of Indiana estimates the floods will result in a crop shortfall of $800 million in the coming year and $200 million in damaged farmlands. To identify insights from past disasters we interviewed officials involved in disaster recovery in the United States and Japan. Domestically, we met with officials from state and local governments affected by the selected disasters, as well as representatives of nongovernmental organizations involved in long-term recovery. In Japan, we met with officials from the government of Japan, Hyogo Prefecture, and the city of Kobe. In addition, we also interviewed over 40 experts—both domestic and international— on the subject of disaster recovery. We visited the key communities affected by five of the six disasters in our study to meet officials involved in the recovery effort and examine current conditions. While we did not visit communities affected by the Red River flood, we were able to gather the necessary information through interviews by telephone with key officials involved in the recovery as well as recovery experts knowledgeable about the disaster. Further, we obtained and reviewed legislation, ordinances, policies, and program documents that described steps taken to facilitate long-term recovery following each of our selected disasters. The scope of our work did not include independent evaluation or verification regarding the extent to which the communities’ recovery efforts were successful. We also drew on previous work we have conducted on recovery efforts in the aftermath of the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. We have issued findings and recommendations on several aspects of the Gulf Coast recovery, including protecting federal disaster programs from fraud, waste, and abuse; providing tax incentives to assist recovery; and determining the role of the nonprofit sector in providing assistance to that region. See figure 3 for the locations of the six disasters that we selected for this review. We reviewed lessons from past disasters and collected information about the impact of Hurricanes Ike and Gustav and the 2008 Midwest floods from June 2007 through September 2008 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. After a major disaster, a recovery plan can provide state and local governments with a valuable tool to document and communicate recovery goals, decisions, and priorities. Such plans offer communities a roadmap as they begin the process of short- and long-term recovery. The process taken to develop these plans also allows state and local governments to involve the community in identifying recovery goals and priorities. After past disasters, the federal government has both funded and provided technical assistance on how to create such plans. In our review of recovery plans that state and local governments created after major disasters, we identified three key characteristics. Specifically, these plans (1) identified clear goals for recovery, (2) included detailed information to facilitate implementation, and (3) were established in a timely manner. A recovery plan containing clear goals can provide direction and specific objectives for communities to focus on and strive for. Clear recovery goals can also help state and local governments prioritize projects, allocate resources, and establish a basis for subsequent evaluations of the recovery progress. After the 1995 Kobe earthquake in Japan, the areas most hard-hit by the disaster—Hyogo prefecture and the city of Kobe—identified specific recovery goals to include in their plans. Among these were the goals of rebuilding all damaged housing units in 3 years, removing all temporary housing within 5 years, and completing physical recovery in 10 years. According to later evaluations of Kobe’s recovery conducted by the city and recovery experts, these goals were critical for helping to coordinate the wide range of participants involved in the recovery. In addition, it helped to inform the national government’s subsequent decisions for funding recovery projects in these areas. These goals also allowed the government to communicate its recovery progress with the public. Each month, information on progress made towards achieving these goals was provided to the public on-line and to the media at press conferences. This communication helped to inform the public about the government’s recovery progress on a periodic basis. Further, these goals provided a basis for assessing the recovery progress a few years after the earthquake.