David McCue stands near the roof of his beach house, which was completely demolished by Superstorm Sandy, in Ortley Beach, New Jersey, on Sunday, November 25. See photos of the immediate aftermath of Sandy.
(CNN) -- Major storms are always dangerous. Superstorm Sandy left 132 Americans dead, damaged and destroyed tens of thousands of homes, left millions without power, and crippled the largest metropolitan area in the United States.
The massive human and economic toll of this disaster came just seven years after Hurricane Katrina. It marked only the latest in a spate of deadly and destructive weather events, including the May 2011 tornado that leveled much of Joplin, Missouri.
Not being well prepared for dealing with extreme weather events is very expensive. Two months after Sandy made landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey, the new 113th Congress has just approved a $9.7 billion storm relief measure. But these funds represent but a down payment on a $60.4 billion federal aid package that the Obama administration has requested to help the region recover from a disaster. Meanwhile, the governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut estimate that the tab for storm damage in their states is closer to $82 billion.
Americans need to stop behaving as though major disasters are so rare and unpredictable that little can be done up front to make them less catastrophic.
The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the climate has changed. Global warming is making Mother Nature more mischievous, resulting in weather events that are more frequent and extreme. These disasters pose a greater risk both because the majority of Americans now live within 50 miles of the coast and because the critical infrastructure that coastal communities rely on is becoming more exposed and vulnerable.
There is much that we can and should be doing to better anticipate and prepare for extreme weather events. As a nation, we also should be embracing proven cost-effective measures that will reduce the harm that disasters cause and bolster the speed at which communities can recover.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, there are five important lessons to be learned.
1. Water is more destructive than wind. Media coverage of hurricanes and coastal storms places too much emphasis on wind speed. While images of trees, road signs, and reporters being buffeted by high winds make for good video, they distract from the more serious hazard associated with major storms -- coastal flooding from storm surge and inland flooding from torrential rains. There need to be better predictive tools for estimating how much water a storm may bring and when and where it is likely to go. Rising sea levels are elevating the flooding risk. As a result, adaptations in the design of urban landscapes and the location of critical assets such as power transformers, wastewater systems, and transit systems will need to happen sooner versus later.
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2. Aging infrastructure is vulnerable infrastructure. Failure to adequately invest in energy, transportation, communications, and other infrastructure practically guarantees the failure of critical systems when they are placed under the stress of extreme events. In 2009, when assigning grades for 15 sectors of America's infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers awarded 11 D's and 4 C's. In recent years, the backlog of maintenance, repair, and needed upgrades has only continued to grow, leaving us with aging infrastructure that is more and more brittle. At the top of the priority list must be improving the resilience of the nation's electric power generation, transmission, and distribution systems. While every major infrastructure sector is important, there is little that can keep operating when the lights go out.
3. It's not just about responding to disasters, but recovering from them. Warning people of a pending disaster and getting vulnerable populations out of harm's way is vitally important. So too is emergency response both during and immediately after a storm. But there is a need for far more robust planning for restoring critical systems quickly and getting communities back on their feet again. Harnessing the capabilities of willing and able citizens and the private sector is key. For instance, electric power could be restored more quickly if local independent licensed electricians could be deputized to support utility crews in conducting damage assessments and making repairs. Additionally, the counterpart to having detailed plans to guide evacuations ahead of a storm is having plans that support quickly bringing displaced people back into their homes, schools, and businesses. As extreme weather events become more frequent, it is important to try to make them less disruptive. This places a premium on bolstering community resilience. People and systems need to be able to better withstand, respond, adapt, and rapidly recover from disasters.
4. The federal government matters. Under our federal form of government, disaster response and relief have always been decentralized -- mayors and governors are in charge of incidents that happen in their jurisdictions. Historically, the federal government's role has been to provide assistance when local and state capabilities are overwhelmed. Washington has played this role in every major disaster dating back to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, when over 4,000 troops from the U.S. Army's Pacific Division were mobilized to provide emergency relief, including constructing temporary housing for 20,000 survivors. But as the scale of disasters has grown, so too has the role of the federal government. Extreme weather events like Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy invariably involve multiple states. To coordinate rapid and effective response and recovery on a regional scale requires preplanning. And part of any thoughtful preplanning should be identifying incentives that encourage states and localities to put in place measures that mitigate the risk of needless loss of life and property. This will require a federal government that is increasingly engaged before disasters happen as well as afterward. Assigning a passive "call us if you need us" role to the federal government, practically guarantees future replays of the kind of ineptitude that marked the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
5. Learning from disasters needs to be institutionalized. When the U.S. Army goes to war, it takes along historians. It knows that every battle provides a potential learning opportunity for making its soldiers better war fighters the next time around. It also knows that the best time to collect information about what went right and what went wrong is while events are unfolding. However, when major disasters happen, the process of learning from them is often ad hoc. Mayors and governors may appoint commissions, and the U.S. Congress invariably holds hearings. Not surprisingly, these reviews often become politically charged. What is missing is a process much like that of the National Transportation Safety Board, that automatically conducts investigations and issues reports on civil aviation accidents. Within hours of an incident, the NTSB creates go teams made up of specialists with the relevant expertise to investigate what happened and to support the development of new safety recommendations. In the spirit of "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste," catastrophic disasters like Superstorm Sandy should be seen as teachable moments to better prepare the general public and elected officials for what is inevitable: the next storm.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Stephen Flynn.
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Utility workers replace a pole Sunday that was damaged by Superstorm Sandy in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
Old photographs are laid out to dry on a car hood on Sunday after being removed from a home in Seaside Heights.
Rena McCain cleans out the first floor of her home in Seaside Heights on Sunday.
Little remains of this home in Union Beach, New Jersey, on Tuesday, November 20, after Superstorm Sandy devastated the area.
Wilma Marrero and son Joseph Kendall wait in line about five hours Tuesday for food and other items from a Coney Island distribution point in Brooklyn, New York.
Volunteers on Tuesday remove flooring from a Keansburg, New Jersey, home damaged by the storm.
People walk along a beach in the heavily damaged Rockaway neighborhood in the Queens borough of New York on Friday, November 16.
Amy Neukom works to remove sand from her parents' house in Mantoloking, New Jersey, on Friday -- a result of Superstorm Sandy.
Residents wait for free food in a parking lot in Rockaway on Friday.
President Barack Obama embraces a local resident on Cedar Grove Avenue during a visit to Staten Island on Thursday, November 15.
People receive free sandwiches from a mobile food distribution center in the Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, New York, on Thursday.
Residents take free clothing Thursday at the Ocean Bay Action Center in Queens.
A tattered U.S. flag flies over the storm-damaged boardwalk in the Rockaway section of Queens on Thursday.
Lisa Baney walks back toward her family's home in Bay Head, New Jersey, after taking a photo of a neighbor's destroyed house Wednesday, November 14.
A living room is filled with sand Wednesday washed in by Superstorm Sandy in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. Two weeks after the storm hit, many residents of the seaside town remain without power.
People wait in line to receive free food from the American Red Cross on Wednesday in the heavily damaged Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, New York. Thousands are still without power and heat.
People walk past a destroyed miniature golf attraction Wednesday in Point Pleasant, New Jersey.
Heavy equipment operator Bill Unger carries photos he salvaged from a mass dump of household possessions on Tuesday in the Midland Beach area of the Staten Island. Unger said he's been collecting the photos as he cleans and taking them to his daughter, who is posting them on Facebook for neighborhood residents to find and later collect.
People wait in line to collect some of the 1,500 donated coats from New York Cares on Tuesday in Queens. The charity started its annual coat drive early this year to assist those affected by Superstorm Sandy. It hopes to collect 200,000 coats this winter.
A woman walks past debris on Rockaway Beach on Tuesday.
A New York police officer jumps over a large crack in a boardwalk in Brooklyn on Wednesday, November 14. The boardwalk was damaged by the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy.
Insurance claims adjusters walk past burned-out houses Wednesday in the Breezy Point section of Queens, New York. A fire that broke out in the neighborhood during the storm destroyed more than 100 homes.
A family friend of a drowning victim of Superstorm Sandy looks through household debris in New York on Tuesday, November 13.
A man looks through the home of a drowning victim Tuesday.
Children wait to board buses to temporary schools in the Rockaway Beach neighborhood of Queens, New York, on Tuesday. The Rockaways peninsula was hit especially hard when Sandy barreled into the East Coast on October 29, unleashing a record storm surge that flooded low-lying areas and fierce winds that toppled trees and power lines.
A home damaged by Sandy is seen in Union Beach, New Jersey, on Monday, November 12.
A resident of Breezy Point in Queens walks past houses destroyed by fire during Sandy on Monday.
Shoes are set out to dry Monday on the steps of a house in an area that was completely flooded on the south side of Staten Island in New York City.
Dale Freeman stands in his water-damaged apartment in a public housing building that still doesn't have power on Monday in Brooklyn. About 58,000 customers in the Rockaways, Long Island and Brooklyn require more extensive repairs before electricity can be restored.
Residents who returned to their damaged homes line up for a hot meal served from a Red Cross vehicle on Samson Avenue in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, on Monday.
A home damaged by Sandy lists in Mantoloking, New Jersey, on Monday.
One room has power Monday in Rockaway, where many areas are still without electricity. "If you don't have your power back, it probably means power can't be restored to your home at this time," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday afternoon.
Debris strewen by Superstorm Sandy sits piled outside a damaged home in Mantoloking, New Jersey, on Monday.
People line up to receive donated items from Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens at Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Brooklyn on Monday.
People gather for donated food beneath a spotlight in an area still without power on Monday in Rockaway.
Roofers repair damage Monday on a home in the Annadale neighborhood of Staten Island.
An SUV sits atop the debris from a home in Mantoloking, New Jersey, on Monday.
A woman makes her way past trash piles in Lower Manhattan on Monday.
A man looks through donated clothes and supplies at nightfall Monday in Rockaway.
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