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In total these three events killed 2,187 people, destroyed/damaged 1.2 million homes/buildings, cost $250 billion (2014 dollars) and created 180 million cubic yards of debris. This cost does not include indirect economic losses (productivity, revenue, health etc.). The debris alone would fill a landfill the size of 3,000 football fields 4 stories deep.
The alarming note is that all this destruction occurred over a mere fifth of a century in just the eastern quarter of US and from only one hazard type. The built environment failed on a scale that it shouldn’t have. Its Resilience Capacity proved low. The panic button was pushed repeatedly only to reveal that Emergency Capacity also was lacking.
According to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA, part of the Department of Homeland Security), during the last four decades the total number of major disaster declarations has more than doubled.
Year | Reported Disasters |
|---|---|
2005 – 2014 | 631 |
1995 – 2004 | 529 |
1985 – 1994 | 314 |
1975 – 1984 | 274 |
A number of factors lie behind this escalation, but it is clear that the US has become more disaster-prone. If the most built and economically developed nation is so vulnerable, how worried should the rest of the world be?
The UN estimates that the average annual global cost of disasters has reached $300 billion and is growing. Only about a quarter of this amount is actually insured. This figure exceeds the GDP of 80% of the world’s economies. If converted to a tax on annual global GDP growth, it would equal 12%
The three events mentioned earlier only form the most visible tip of the US ‘disaster iceberg’. If we review tornados, the conclusion is similar. Examine floods, same story. Investing made the US a ‘superpower’, but when it comes to that investment’s resilience to natural hazards the US appears to have ‘built’ itself into a vulnerable corner.
Its relative exposure can be seen in this ten-year review (2000-09) by Global Humanitarian Assistance, which lists the ten countries with populations most impacted by natural disasters:
Country | Population Impact |
|---|---|
1. China | 1,321 million people impacted |
2. India | 602 |
3. Bangladesh | 73 |
4. Philippines | 53 |
5. Thailand | 44 |
6. Pakistan | 33 |
7. Ethiopia | 29 |
8. Vietnam | 22 |
9. US | 21 |
10. S. Africa | 15 |
However the record is even more severe when the same countries are ranked by the economic cost of disasters. The US is #1.
| 1. US | 353 billion US dollars |
| 2. China | 206 |
| 3. India | 26 |
| 4. Pakistan | 17 |
| 5. Ethiopia | 9 |
| 6. Bangladesh | 6 |
| 7. Vietnam | 6 |
| 8. Philippines | 3 |
| 9. Thailand | 2 |
| 10. S. Africa | 1 |
These represented 61% of total global disaster losses. US losses exceeded the sum of the remaining nine countries combined. Of course US investment and wealth intensity is higher. You would expect that level of investment would come with a higher level of lasting quality. Unfortunately much of it is not.
This magnitude of disaster losses might appear affordable to Americans (while public debt mounts), but would definitely be unbearable for the rest of the world. Such development is clearly unsustainable. While the US may not serve as the role model for resilient development, it may better form an example of how not to develop. Non-resilient development is very costly. It also wastes valuable natural resources and burdens the environment with enormous disaster debris. So far, the green movement appears to have missed this.
The purpose here is not to ‘beat-up’ on the US, but rather to learn from its experience and avoid repeating its mistakes. What can nations (and the US) do differently to make their development more resilient to destruction (i.e. invest in Resilience Capacity)? The answer requires analyzing the root causes of vulnerability. We will therefore explore the US development model with an eye on extracting these lessons.
