Disaster Recovery Operations

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Q&A with the Experts: Puerto Rico

When Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico on September 18, electricity went out across the island. It was a reminder that recovery from 2017's Hurricane Maria is far from complete. RAND researchers discuss the difficulties Puerto Rico is still facing.

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Putin's Latest Threats, U.S. Policy in the Middle East, Disaster Recovery: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on Russia's troop mobilization and the ongoing war in Ukraine, U.S. policy in the Middle East, building a more diverse teacher workforce, and more.

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The Disaster Bills Coming Due

The United States largely waits for a disaster to strike and then spends billions to repair damages. Investing in resilience today can significantly reduce the costs to recover after a disaster strikes.

Jessie Riposo, Shelly Culbertson @SC_Culbertson

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U.S. Labor Market, 988 Hotline, Firearm Homicides: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on the U.S. economy’s uneven pandemic recovery, a new national mental health hotline, firearm homicides, and more.

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Rebuilding Ukraine for a Changing Climate

When the war in Ukraine ends, the country will in all likelihood undergo a massive reconstruction. Ukraine could rebuild in a way that would both lower its carbon footprint and construct infrastructure resilient to the effects of climate change.

Mark Stalczynski, Ismael Arciniegas Rueda, et al.

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Citizen Science Helps Communities Participate in, Understand, and Trust Science

Good citizen science brings a community together and helps it prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. A RAND guide takes non-expert investigators from the early stages of defining their questions and setting their goals, through building their teams, to planning for action.

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RAND Commentary Highlights of 2021

Vaccine rollouts, an attack on the U.S. Capitol, massive ransomware attacks, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, record numbers of job openings and people quitting, and more. RAND researchers weighed in on all these topics and more.

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Hurricane Ida Is Part of a Cycle of Disasters—Mitigating Their Impact Means Building Back Better

Building back better means focusing on recovery that not only restores damage from a disaster but also reduces future risk. To meet that goal today, we need to look at the ways our disaster preparedness and response systems actually create risk themselves, by reinforcing things like wealth inequality, systemic discrimination, or access to crucial services.

Jay Balagna, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg @aclarkginsberg

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Four Strategies to Reduce Disaster Risk in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Contexts

Addressing the circumstances for the more than two billion people living in fragile and conflict-affected contexts is crucial for delivering on the United Nations commitment for disaster risk reduction. Four strategies can help reduce risk and improve resilience for these communities.

Aaron Clark-Ginsberg @aclarkginsberg, Ronak B. Patel, et al.

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New Thinking to Translate Infrastructure Dollars into Resilience

Infrastructure investments the United States makes today to recover from the pandemic can help boost resilience for the future. We will need to think beyond what we've done in the past to ensure that these investments can continue to protect the nation from shifting threats in the future.

Benjamin Lee Preston @bl_preston, Michelle E. Miro, et al.

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COVID-19 Disinformation, Biden's Address, Leaving Afghanistan: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on Russian and Chinese campaigns to spread malign and subversive information on COVID-19, President Biden's address to Congress, the planned U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and more.

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Disaster Recovery in Puerto Rico: Q&A with Marielena Lara

When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September 2017, it peeled roofs from houses, turned roads into rivers, and left millions of people without electricity or safe drinking water. Marielena Lara, a senior physician policy researcher at RAND, was grateful to be part of the recovery planning.

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Local Communities Need a Voice in How to 'Build Back Better'

Long before it was popularized and made its way into political slogans and economic recovery battle cries, the phrase “building back better” was a central tenet of disaster recovery and community resilience. How should community voices be incorporated into “building back better” processes?

Max Izenberg, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg @aclarkginsberg

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Previous Disasters Provide Important Lessons for Central America's Recovery from Hurricanes

As the global community works to assist Central America in recovering from the disastrous 2020 hurricane season, other recent recovery efforts offer helpful lessons, both for the governments of the region as well as outsiders providing resources and support.

Shelly Culbertson @SC_Culbertson, Ismael Arciniegas Rueda, et al.

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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Are Important Tools to Improve Cost Estimation for Natural Disasters in Electric Utilities

Natural disasters in the United States cause billions of dollars of damage to electric infrastructure every year. Applying artificial intelligence and machine learning in a disaster-recovery context for electrical utilities might significantly improve cost estimating capability and responsiveness.

Ismael Arciniegas Rueda, Parousia Rockstroh