Disaster Recovery Journal Fall 2023

management are dynamic processes. Full adherence to procedures and standards could sometimes prove to be detrimental. An analysis based on real data and infor mation gathered from the scene of the incident provides more factual and realis tic lessons which are not only helpful to understand or clarify the different aspects of an incident but also serve as enablers for future success. One of the drawbacks of procedures is the gap they create between theory and practice. The more lessons that are added to disaster databases means the more capable societies are likely to become in their future encounters. Full reliance on theory to manage disasters and crises is also insufficient. What people and organizations experience and learn is what makes the difference. In the past, the nature, complexity, and dynamics of disas ters and crises were simpler and therefore simple procedures were adequate to have a full control over the event. Today, major events are multi-faceted and multi-dimen sional due to connectedness and the inte gration between all sectors, industries, and the economic, political, environmental, and financial factors. Nowadays, with the help of technology, lessons learned can be fed into disaster management systems, and the social and inter-organizational networks which com bine multiple methods and techniques in order to provide more relevant information in hazard events and emergency situations. In the U.S. for instance, disaster manage ment systems rely heavily on networks of partners from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Disaster management networks are being used more actively at the local, state, and national levels of gov ernment. Lessons learned enable decision support frameworks to prioritize stake holders’ interaction areas and ways of col laboration. v Ihab Hanna Sawalha is a professor of business continuity and strategic plan ning. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Huddersfield, UK, and an MBA from Coventry University, UK. He has published widely in the fields of risk, disaster, and continuity manage ment. The author can be contacted at ihabsawalha78@ gmail.com.

the result of unplanned or spontaneous human intervention(s) during the incident, the lesson learned is to further diagnose these interventions in order to validate their long-term appropriateness for future occurrences. In case the outcomes of management went wrong (i.e., undesired outcomes) based on a set of predefined measures, the lesson learned is to cor rect or redesign these measures in order to better accommodate potential future incidents. In case spontaneous interven tions yielded undesirable or destructive outcomes, the lesson learned is such pat terns of behavior should be avoided next time an incident occurs. The figure above is expected to provide even more useful information if exercised realistically, regu larly, and objectively. A remarkable case which demon strates the value of the lessons learned from disasters is the case of the Huang He River in China. In 1933, the river flooded and swept through villages and farmland. It killed thousands of people and left mil lions homeless. For hundreds of years, the people who lived along the river tried to control the frequent river floods. However, the silt continued to cause the level of the

riverbed to rise over the years. According to the conceptual model presented above, such unplanned interventions represent those which should have been avoided since the outcomes of the management process yielded negative outcomes. The flooding used to occur on an annual basis and caused similar levels of damage every year. Finally, people decided to stop the river from overflowing by building up the banks to form high walls, or dikes. Unfortunately, this exacerbated the situa tion as many of them collapsed. According to the figure above, these planned interven tions represent those which need to be cor rected or redesigned since the outcomes of management were also negative. After many years, people recognized (by learn ing from their previous experiences) the best way to prepare for future floods is by planting trees and other vegetation along the river. Plants helped to absorb rain fall and reduce soil erosion that washed silt into the river. According to the above figure, these planned interventions repre sent those which need to be adopted and those which were actually adopted on real ground as they yielded positive outcomes. It must be noted that disaster and crisis

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