Repairing damages, building resilience as rains fall
Texas can’t seem to catch a break. Even before hurricane season officially started this month, storms have battered the Gulf Coast, causing an estimated $200 million-$550 million in damage to Houston alone. Central Texas faced its worst flooding in decades. Forecasts call for continued rainfall and at least three named hurricanes for the 2015 season — any of which could hit Texas.
It’s not just storms that pose a threat to the state. Wildfires, tornadoes and drought are also among shocks we cannot always prevent or predict. Crisis has become the new normal — not just for cities in Texas, but communities everywhere. Every week we hear of new disruptions: a cyber attack, an earthquake, civil unrest — and those are just the headline-grabbing shocks. At the same time, slow-burning stresses, from water scarcity to inequality, are continuing to put additional pressures on communities.
But not every disruption has to become a disaster. By building resilience, communities can prepare for, rebound from and even grow from these threats. And when done right, resilience investments yield dividends in the form of job creation, greater social cohesion and better ecosystem management.
In the 10 years since Hurricane Katrina we’ve seen these dividends pay off in New Orleans. The story of New Orleans was more than failed levees: Floodwaters exposed deeply entrenched problems that had festered for decades.
With New Orleans’ renewed commitment to building resilience, the city is coming back stronger than ever, with greater
awareness and collaboration to solve shared and deeply rooted challenges. In the process, it’s attracting a new wave of talent to the city, improving its education system and diversifying its economy. New Orleans still has work to do, but it has taught us that resilience isn’t just about responding and reacting — it’s about planning and preparing.
Texas has also made strides since 2001’s Tropical Storm Allison dropped 35 inches of rainwater, killed 41 people, and left nearly $9 billion in damage — making it at the time the deadliest and costliest Tropical Storm in American history. Ongoing efforts like Project Brays, a $450 million effort to expand the Bayou and protect against severe flooding, and improvements to emergency response systems, are steps in the right direction. But more must be done.
Because of globalization, urbanization and climate change, unchecked localized vulnerabilities can cause problems elsewhere. In 2015, what messes with Texas doesn’t just mess with Texans. For example, Texas is a key component of the country’s energy infrastructure. If storm surges shut down Texan oil refineries — as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita did, which resulted in the loss of 34 million barrels of oil, roughly 6 percent of the year’s production — all Americans would feel the impact of disruptions to the energy supply and rising gasoline prices.
That’s why national and state government as well as elected and business leaders must collaborate and coordinate on these shared challenges. As members of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities Network, El Paso and Dallas have worked to do just that. By working across agencies and sectors, these cities have built and implemented a unified resilience strategy. El Paso has worked on collaborating with neighboring Cuidad Juárez, Mexico, exemplifying the best of international cooperation.
Together, the cities are addressing immigration and increasing the resilience of their shared and limited water supply, acting as a beacon for resilience in Texas.
Some might argue it is impossible to address such a range of issues through a single strategy. But the traditional model of solving these challenges as isolated issues has failed us time and again. Resilience offers a framework through which investments can be coordinated and planning integrated across agencies, communities and entire regions.
From its beginnings, Texas has a history of facing down existential threats, adapting to new realities and coming out on top. But the greatest threats may be yet to come.
What’s clear is the tools and approaches that worked for the state’s first two centuries won’t be enough to survive and thrive in its third.
Only by taking swift action, and shifting to focus on planning and preparing, can Texas be ready for what comes next. Rodin is President of The Rockefeller Foundation and author of “The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong.”