In January 1957, a man by the name William L. McGill authored an article entitled “How a State Prepares for Disaster” that appeared in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 309, pp. 89-97 (peramlink).  According to the footnote on the first page of this article, Mr. McGill was the Texas State Coordinator of Defense and Disaster Relief and past President of the National Association of State and Territorial Civil Defense Directors.  The abstract of this paper is as follows:

The State of Texas leads the other states of the nation in the number of major disasters: it is first in tornadoes and devestating floods and second in hurricanes.  This article describes how Texas, under its Civil Protection Act of 1951, without setting up an independent state agency, has gone about mobilizing and utilizing the resources of the state in time of major disaster.  The “Texas Plan” is discussed in detail and attention paid in particular to its cost and financing, the planning of disaster relief, preparedness, and training.

So how did Texas prepare for disaster from naturally occurring event, accidents, or enemy action?  By a combination of warning, agility, cooperative alliances (horizontally and vertically, mitigation through cooperation), and lots and lots of education and training.  In my view, this is a well-rounded risk management strategy.  Most interestingly, Mr. McGill emphasizes the importance of self-reliance during a disaster as it is “a basic tenet of our system of government that all people should help themselves to the fullest possible extent” (p. 91).  Well said!  When people can’t help themselves, then neighbors, towns, districts, the State, and only when resources run out, the Federal government will step in to lend a hand.

I can’t say why I am particularly interested in this paper.  Is it because it is relevant to my work?  Perhaps.  Is it because the author and I share the same name?  More likely.  The real answer is “yes” to both questions.  Here are some other links to materials associated with Mr. (or rather, the Honorable) William L. McGill:

• Opinion S-135 dated 15 Jul 1954 by Texas Attorney General John Ben Shepperd Re: Authority of the State Disaster Officials to Spray Private Residences in the Rio Grande Flood Area
• A little bit of Texas state history describing William L. McGill’s role as Texas’ first state coordinator of defense and disaster relief, a position he held for 8 years.  In this role, Mr. McGill reported directly to the governor on matters pertaining to civil protection (inspired by the Cold War, no doubt).
• A story about how Mr. McGill was relieved of his duties in Texas to support the WWII war effort

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Siambabala Bernard Manyena’s 2006 paper entitled “The Concept of Resilience Revisited” (Disasters, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 433-450, doi:10.1111/j.0361-3666.2006.00331.x) provided a nice summary of alternative definitions for the word “resilience” gleaned from a variety of academic publications (copied below; see original paper for citations).  The number of definitions are fewer than that for the word vulnerability as talked about in my previous post.

• Wildavsky (1991) Resilience is the capacity to cope with unanticipated dangers after they have become manifest, learning to bounce back.
• Holling et al., (1995) It is the buffer capacity or the ability of a system to absorb perturbation, or the magnitude of disturbance that can be absorbed before a system changes its structure by changing the variables.
• Horne and Orr (1998) Resilience is a fundamental quality of individuals, groups and organisations, and systems as a whole to respond productively to significant change that disrupts the expected pattern of events without engaging in an extended period of regressive behaviour.
• Mallak (1998) Resilience is the ability of an individual or organisation to expeditiously design and implement positive adaptive behaviours matched to the immediate situation, while enduring minimal stress.
• Miletti (1999) Local resiliency with regard to disasters means that a locale is able to withstand an extreme natural event without suffering devastating losses, damage, diminished productivity, or quality of life without a large amount of assistance from outside the community.
• Comfort (1999) The capacity to adapt existing resources and skills to new systems and operating conditions.
• Paton, Smith and Violanti (2000) Resilience describes an active process of self-righting, learned resourcefulness and growth—the ability to function psychologically at a level far greater than expected given the individual’s
  capabilities and previous experiences.
• Kendra and Wachtendorf (2003) The ability to respond to singular or unique events.
• Cardona (2003) The capacity of the damaged ecosystem or community to absorb negative impacts and recover from these.
• Pelling (2003) The ability of an actor to cope with or adapt to hazard stress.
• Resilience Alliance (2005) Ecosystem resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes. A resilient ecosystem can withstand shocks and rebuild itself when necessary. Resilience in social systems has the added capacity of humans to anticipate and plan for the future.
• UNISDR (2005) The capacity of a system, community or society potentially exposed to hazards to adapt, by resisting or changing in order to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure. This is determined by the degree to which the social system is capable of organising itself to increase this capacity for learning from past disasters for better future protection and to improve risk reduction measures.

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