1. I've tweeted a lot about this story so here's some more cohesive thoughts. Without emotion (god it's getting harder), and beyond the obvious notion that the government has a duty to have accurate numbers, this new numbers also matters because there will be more hurricanes.
2. In disaster management, there are five stages to a crisis: prevention, protection, response, recovery and resiliency. The "boom" (event) occurs between protection and response. It is why people like me talk in terms of left and right of boom. nytimes.com/2017/06/05/opi…
3. Each of these stages has its own focus, policies, etc. But I want to focus on resiliency, the last. Resiliency is more than a mood; it's actually a series of investments that make a system better than before. Because, there will be more hurricanes (& terror attacks, etc.)
4. I've worked in this field and studied it for a long time, and one key component of a resilient system is one that takes "lessons learned" seriously. A system "assumes the boom" and learns so that it can adapt for next time.
5. Assume the boom. There will be more hurricanes.
6. So a system that can learn from what went wrong is more resilient can teach other jurisdictions how to be so. So, back to the death toll. That people die in a disaster is a given; it's the nature disasters. HOW THEY DIE is our obligation so we can protect life the next time.
7. An example I mentioned today. Nearly 100 people died in the 1976 blizzard. They did not die from snow. They died because the storm came in so fast that people were not told to get off roads. They died as they got stuck, needed heat and carbon monoxide overwhelmed their cars
8. There are countless other examples: who lives and dies is not a matter of luck. And if we could pass those lessons on then more lives could be saved next time (wherever the boom happens).
9. It's hard to be resilient when the official death toll is so low. It makes it seem that there was no tragedy. But we will also never be able to learn HOW did these Americans die: dehydration, illness, food, what?
10. And it matters because what we learn will change the way we deliver services or think about the next disaster. But it can not be that the US response only be judge binary: it was good or bad (my vote). There are still specifics that begin with the body count.
11. At the margins, there may be some debates about "causation" for some of these deaths but not in the 1000s. I've read the study. It holds up. The US has decided not only that those lost souls do not count as victims of the hurricane.
12. It's also decided that it will make the same response mistakes again. And again. And again.
Hurricane season starts this Friday.
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#puertorico #homelandsecurity @DHSgov
Hurricane season starts this Friday.
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#puertorico #homelandsecurity @DHSgov
