PUBLICATIONS
Broadmoor Project Publications
Community Mapping Project In June and July of 2006 the Broadmoor community took on a mapping and surveying project. Bard College compiled information collected by Harvard University and Bard College students with the help from PlanReady, Inc. This is a step-by-step guidebook on community-wide surveying and mapping projects for other neighborhood associations and CDCs.
Lessons From Katrina: How a Community Can Spearhead Successful Disaster Recovery is intended to serve as a guidebook to a community-driven planning process. It provides a phase-by-phase analysis of the planning and implementation process for neighborhood redevelopment, complete with sample documentation and details of the myriad components that make up such a process. It is written based on the model of Broadmoor, a New Orleans neighborhood that sustained severe flood damage from Hurricane Katrina. The Broadmoor community-driven planning and implementation model, as outlined in this guidebook, is intended to be applied to other New Orleans neighborhoods, communities throughout the Gulf Coast, and other communities around the world facing post-disaster recovery and reconstruction.
Articles and Working Papers
Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard and Daniel Curran. "Recovery in Aceh: Towards a Strategy of Emergence." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 05-082, 2005. Centralized and decentralized recovery efforts are examined in post-Tsunami Aceh. On-the-ground results showed that villagers were very effective in their efforts to rebuild their homes and livelihoods after the Tsunami (often surpassing top-down reconstruction planning efforts). This paper lays out a strategy of emergence for post-disaster recovery. This emergence strategy was used as the theoretical basis for the Broadmoor Project in New Orleans.
Robert W. Kates, C. E. Colten, S. Laska, and S. P. Leatheran. 2006. Reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: a research perspective. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Special Feature. 103(40) (26 September): 14653-14660. Four propositions drawn from 60 years of natural hazard and reconstruction research provide a comparative and historical perspective on the reconstruction of New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. Decisions taken over its 288 year history, that have made New Orleans vulnerable to Katrina, reflect a long term pattern of societal response to hazard events—reducing consequences to relatively frequent events, and increasing vulnerability to very large and rare events. A comparative sequence and timing of recovery provides a calendar of historical experience against which to gauge progress in reconstruction. Using this calendar, the emergency post-disaster period appears to be longer in duration than any other studied disasters. The effort to reconstruct the physical environment and urban infrastructure is likely to take 8-11 years. Conflicting policy goals for reconstruction of rapid recovery, safety, betterment, and equity are already evident. Actions taken demonstrate the rush to rebuild the familiar in contrast to planning efforts that emphasize betterment. Slides
Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard and Arnold M. Howitt, "Katrina as Prelude: Preparing for and Responding to Katrina-Class Disturbances in the United States," Testimony before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, March 8, 2006. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (2006) Vol. 2:3. Hurricane Katrina was the largest natural disaster to befall the United States in at least a century. It is a story of failures of systems and of failures to construct systems in advance that would have permitted and helped to produce better performance and outcomes.
Arnold M. Howitt and Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard, "Katrina and the Core Challenges of Disaster Response," The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, (Winter 2006), Vol 30:1. Hurricane Katrina revealed the weaknesses in the U.S. emergency response capabilities that need to be addressed if the country is to be ready for future natural and man-made disasters. These problems arise mainly from the scale of the event, its novelty, and of its complexity.
Arnold M. Howitt and Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard, "Beyond Katrina: Improving Disaster Response Capabilities," Working Papers 2006 (Center for Public Leadership, Kennedy School of Government, May 2006). Published as a two-part series in the Crisis/Response Journal (June and September 2006). This paper examines the weaknesses in U.S. emergency response capabilities that were revealed by Hurricane Katrina. These problems were not limited to failures of individuals, but represent failures of systems (or lack of systems) to handle a class of disasters of a magnitude beyond the capabilities of a local "bottom-up" system of emergency management. This paper expands the analysis presented in "Katrina and the Core Challenges of Disaster Response," in the Fletcher Forum of Word Affairs.)
David T. Ellwood, "Empowering the Poor," Op-Ed, The Boston Globe, September 27, 2005. It took a terrible hurricane to make the problem of poverty in America visible once again. The rebuilding of New Orleans offers a unique opportunity to tackle the dilemma of poverty and to offer the poor a real chance and to create vastly more viable neighborhoods.
Kennedy School Case Studies
Case studies on New Orleans disaster planning, response, and recovery have been developed for use in Harvard executive education programs (in collaboration with the Program on Emergency Preparedness and Crisis Management at the Taubman Center and the Kennedy School's Case Program). These cases are available through the Kennedy School case study program for use in programs at other universities or in private training worldwide. The suite of cases begins with the lead-up to Katrina (preparedness), the first week after landfall (response), and the planning efforts for rebuilding New Orleans after the disaster (reconstruction/recovery). They can be taught individually, in pairs, or as an entire set that provides a complete anatomy of a landscape scale disaster.
Hurricane Katrina (A): Preparing for "The Big One" in New Orleans (case no. 1843.0) This case tells the story of the lead-up to the storm, detailing the steps taken by the different agencies and levels of government as the storm drew near. The case asks readers to consider why local, state and federal governments all proved unready to respond effectively to a catastrophic event which had been long predicted. Part A can be taught alone or in tandem with part B. It would be useful in classes on emergency or strategic management as well as on intergovernmental relations.
Hurricane Katrina (B): Responding to an "Ultra-Catastrophe" in New Orleans (case no. 1844.0) This case tells the story of the first week of the post-landfall response to Katrina, describing the devastation left by the storm and the largely ineffective efforts of officials to respond to the overwhelming need it created. It asks the reader to consider the operational issues of emergency response, particularly the problems of interagency, interjurisdictional, and intergovernmental coordination in an environment where infrastructure and communications systems gad been almost entirely destroyed. Used in tandem with Part A, the case provides a before-and-after look at the responses to Katrina, but can also be taught as a freestanding case.
Plans versus Politics: New Orleans after Katrina (case no. 1862.0) This case examines the initial planning effort undertaken by the city of New Orleans in the first five months after the disaster. On September 29, 2005 (one month after Katrina made landfall), Mayor C. Ray Nagin appointed a blue-ribbon panel known as the Bring New Orleans Back (BNOB) commission to produce a reconstruction plan by the end of the year. The BNOB commission faced daunting choices. They could recommend a "shrunken footprint" for a city which demographers predicted would have only two-thirds of its pre-Katrina population, or it could recommend more of a free-market approach to planning where residents could rebuild wherever they chose, but with a result that urban planners warned would be a crippled half-built city (a situation known as "The Jack-o-Lantern Effect.") This case asks the reader to consider the issues, trade-offs and politics involved with post-disaster reconstruction planning. It can be taught alone or with its sequel case (Part B).
Plans versus Politics: New Orleans after Katrina, Sequel (case no. 1862.1) This case is the sequel (Part B) to the "Plans versus Politics" case which examines the BNOB reconstruction planning process in the first five months after Katrina. That case leaves off with the release of the BNOB plan for rebuilding the city of New Orleans. This sequel examines the reaction of the residents and the politicians to the release of the reconstruction plan. It is a fascinating examination of the politics of planning and asks the readers to consider what is the appropriate process and timing for creating a recovery plan after a disaster, and how can planners build political support for their plans?
Wal-Mart's Response to Hurricane Katrina: Striving for a Public-Private Partnership (case no. 1876.0) As Hurricane Katrina boar down on the Gulf South, the public sector prepared for what was expected to be a devastating storm. At the same time, the private sector was undergoing its own preparations. Giant retailer Wal-Mart had already launched a comprehensive emergency response to look after its own stores and employees. After Hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic flooding that overwhelmed the government's response, Wal-Mart found itself playing a larger role than it had anticipated. The following chaotic weeks raised important questions about whether the public sector could take full advantage of the retailer's strengths and capabilities, and whether it was ready to accept a larger role for Wal-Mart and other companies in responding to national emergencies.
Wal-Mart's Response to Hurricane Katrina: Striving for a Public-Private Partnership, Sequel (case no. 1876.1) This epilogue accompanies the case "Wal-Mart's Response to Hurricane Katrina" (case number 1876.0) This case examines the role of public-private partnerships in responding to large-scale catastrophes and national emergencies. The case should be useful for those interested in emergency preparedness; inter-agency collaborations; public-private partnerships; and organizational behavior.
Links to Other Publications about Broadmoor and New Orleans Recovery
Sanford Ikeda and Peter Gordon, "Power to the Neighborhoods: The Devolution of Authority in Post-Katrina New Orleans," Policy Paper, Mercatus Center, George Mason University. August 28, 2007. This policy paper from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University looks at the role of local authority in post-disaster environments and questions whether a new strategy of power-sharing may be more effective in rebuilding New Orleans. The paper contends that, while the current interest in "citizen participation" in the planning process may sound positive, it falls far short of the openness to innovation required to rebuild a city after a catastrophic disaster. The authors suggest that one way to encourage innovation is devolution of authority -- the devolving of some or all authority from the municipality to the neighborhood level. The Broadmoor neighborhood is cited as an example of private neighborhood associations performing the functions of municipalities.
