ABSTRACT
Definitions .............................................................................................................. 152 Food, Water, and Shelter ................................................................................... 153 Logistics, Transportation, Communications, and Electricity ........................... 154 Government and Finance .................................................................................. 155 Goods and Services ........................................................................................... 155 Education and Research .................................................................................... 156 Public Health and Healthcare ........................................................................... 156
Priorities ................................................................................................................. 157 First Echelon ..................................................................................................... 157 Second Echelon ................................................................................................. 158 Third Echelon .................................................................................................... 159 Fourth Echelon .................................................................................................. 160
Effects of Catastrophes on CI ................................................................................ 160 Resilience or Vulnerability: Socioeconomic and Cultural Impacts .................. 161 Two Cases: Infrastructure Collapse in Poor Haiti and Wealthy Japan ............. 163
Strategies for Minimizing and Intervening in CI Failures in Catastrophes .......... 164 Mitigation .......................................................................................................... 164 Recognize Hypercomplexity ............................................................................. 165 Focus on Inviting Private Owners ..................................................................... 166 Recognize Professional Organizations ............................................................. 167 Work with Non-Traditional Assets .................................................................... 167 Recognize the Crucial Roles of Second-Echelon CI ........................................ 167
Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 168 References .............................................................................................................. 168
It was not Hurricane Katrina that nearly decimated New Orleans, but rather a failure of the city’s system of levees and dikes designed to protect the low-lying city from flooding. Likewise, the 2010, 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti became a catastrophe because of the massive failure of housing, government ministry buildings, bridges, the Port-au-Prince port, and hospitals. The 2011, 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in Japan went from being a large disaster to a hypercomplex catastrophe when a series of nuclear power plants, an important part of the Japanese electrical power supply, failed and melted down, drawing away precious response resources and brain power from the needs of tsunami victims, and at the same time throwing regional power supplies into a tailspin. By contrast, the 8.8 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit Chile in 2010 only damaged some of the CI (critical infrastructure) Chileans depend on, and as a result the resources required for response were manageable within the country’s skills and resources.
