Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
Summit on Resilience President Stephen J. Friedman: Introductory Remarks Good morning and welcome to what I expect will be the first in a series of important discussions on resilience and rebuilding after natural or terrorist disasters. This conference grew out of a series of conversations between Dr. Joseph Ryan, the Chair of Pace's Criminal Justice and Security Program and the head of our graduate program in Homeland Security, and some of his friends and colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Homeland Defense and Security in Monterey California. The Naval Post Graduate School is a co-sponsor of this conference and we are very grateful for their important contributions and support. We are also grateful to The Boeing Company and to Target for their financial support of this conference. We are particularly proud to have two distinguished speakers. Margareta Wahlström, Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Disaster Risk Reduction, will open the conference with a discussion of these issues on a global scale—for make no mistake, these are truly global issues. Governor Tom Ridge, the First Secretary of Homeland Security, will provide the keynote address just before lunch. The premise of the conference is simple. After 9/11, America put tremendous resources into intelligence and detection to prevent a recurrence of a major terrorist event. New York City alone is said to have an anti-terrorism force, including intelligence offices abroad in many countries that includes 10,000 men and women. First responders have been given special training. The humanitarian agencies, both governmental agencies at all levels and NGOs, have vastly increased their experience, knowledge base, and readiness. In the private sector, individual companies have made major investments in building resilience and redundancy into their infrastructures so that they have the necessary basis for business continuity. These efforts have been largely successful and, since 9/11, the nation has suffered from natural and man-made events rather than terrorism. So what's left to talk about? We are dealing, more or less effectively, with the first two stages of the response when disaster strikes: first, law enforcement and emergency response, and second, the implementation of prompt humanitarian measures. But what happens after those initial responses? If I may be permitted a little hyperbole, the third stage—rebuilding—appears to be a black hole. And the larger the size of the rebuilding challenge, the blacker the hole. This is a stage in which the resources, the know-how, and the primary responsibility are concentrated in the private sector. In the face of a major disaster, however, the public will continue to look to government for planning, leadership, and the investment of critical funds when the market is unwilling to assume unknown risks at an acceptable price. The worldwide record in dealing with these stage-three challenges is not a good one. Exhibit A is the amount of time and the level of disorganization that has attended the rebuilding of the World Trade Center Site, just a few blocks from here. Exhibit B, on a larger scale, is our chaotic experience in the rebuilding of New Orleans. Exhibits C and D, though falling in the emergency response rather than rebuilding stages, were the 7