ABSTRACT
Community resilience to disasters is fundamentally local. Commonly referred to as “bouncing back,” disaster resilience involves the strengths a community develops to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. These strengths are reflective of the community population—their economic resources, health, mobility, and activity in local groups. They are also comprised of the institutions and infrastructure the community has developed to prepare for disasters as well as the measures taken to protect the environment. But what makes resilience inherently a local phenomenon is the collective action these strengths empower. The most important aspect of community disaster resilience is the way it enables change through the design of local solutions to local problems. It, therefore, is a way to frame capacity-building needed to be ready for a disaster and an approach to inclusive, collaborative decision-making following a disaster event. In this regard, resilience is an incredibly important resource. Unfortunately, this resource has not been fully tapped. The concept of resilience is fuzzy, and the conditions that facilitate its development are not entirely clear. It is the aim of this book to deepen our understanding of resilience by applying the concept to localities across the Gulf Coast in an effort to answer the big question: How is community disaster resilience understood and practiced on the local level?
