Higher Education as Partner in Disaster Response
Abstract
W
hen disasters strike local communities, nearby higher education institutions often wonder how they can help. In many cases, despite active community engagement programs, campuses don’t possess a great deal of experience in responding to urgent or catastrophic needs. This qualitative, multi-institution case study explored the response of Vermont campuses to Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011. Through narrative interviews with four representative campuses, I addressed two research questions. First, in what ways did Vermont higher education institutions support their local and regional communities in the immediate response after flooding from Tropical Storm Irene? And second, what strategies, approaches, or systems that were used seem to be promising practices for the fields of higher education and disaster management? The study revealed a number of logistical challenges and strategies that were important to campus response. In addition, it revealed the impact that campus culture can have on the ability to respond.
Introduction In August of 2011, Tropical Storm Irene battered the eastern coast of the United States, bringing torrential downpours, winds, and extensive flooding. The State of Vermont was hit especially hard by flood waters that rose both during and after the storm, leaving some towns literally disconnected from the outside world, destroying infrastructure around the state (including many historic buildings and bridges), and damaging thousands of homes. Over 7,000 Vermonters registered for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).1 In the days, weeks, and months after Irene, students, faculty, and staff from college campuses around the state contributed their time and energy to help local communities recover. Some campuses sent hundreds of volunteers into neighboring towns to “muck out� and clean up, and others offered more indirect support (e.g., infrastructure recovery, space for displaced workers, follow-up research, etc.). Most of these campuses had never responded to such a catastrophic natural disaster in their home state, and for the most part, they were not using preestablished protocol to do so. Through this study, I sought to understand what happened on campuses in 58
Vermont in terms of community response. In particular, I explored how campuses contributed to immediate and short-term volunteer needs in local communities, and how those efforts were structured or supported. I did so through a case study approach, which included interviews and document analysis with four campuses representing different scales and sizes, including one faith-based institution, one military college, one state college, and one private liberal arts college. Common themes, strategies, and approaches that may be transferable to similar situations were explored in an effort to encourage all campuses to consider how they might respond to such a disaster in a nearby community. Brief Literature Review Although many college campuses have been involved in disaster recovery efforts across the United States and around the world (with popular press articles covering these extensive volunteer efforts), at the time when Tropical Storm Irene hit Vermont, there was not a great deal of published research on the relative success or failure of such services or on the institutional approach to providing
Key words higher education disaster response, campus disaster preparation, campus-community engagement, campus disaster response