By Ashley Garst
H1 Staff

Wash. — A new study published Wednesday from the GOA highlighted effective steps toward recovery from a major disaster.

The steps included the need for clearly defined roles, effective coordination, and periodic evaluation of recovery progress.

The most critical of the three, GOA found, was having clearly defined roles: in the 2009 review of the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Rebuilding (OFC) found confusion and disagreements among key recovery stakeholders as well as with the Federal Coordinator himself regarding the office’s appropriate scope and function.

The GOA noted that recovery from a major disaster is a long and complex process that involves an extensive group of participants both across the federal government and at the state and local level.

At least 14 federal departments and agencies are responsible for administering dozens of recovery-related programs, many of which rely heavily on active participation by state and local government for their implementation, making the need for communication and coordination paramount.

Evaluating the event and subsequent recovery efforts would help to inform the next disaster response. After a 1995 earthquake, the city of Kobe, Japan and the surrounding region held periodic external reviews over a span of 10 years on the progress made toward achieving recovery goals.

As a result, they gained insight into the unintended consequences of how it relocated elderly earthquake victims, which led into a change in policy.