Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

What is disaster recovery and how will the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool help communities following a disaster?

What are the benefits/end results of using the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool?

Who should use the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool?

When should the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool be used?

What geographic scale(s) does the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool consider?

How were the metrics contained within the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool developed? Can metrics be altered or customized?

Which metrics are most important to enter into the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool?

How often should metric data entries be updated?

How long will it take to enter the data necessary to track disaster recovery?

“Recovery” from disaster is a function of the direction a community wishes to move in following a disruptive event. Whether your community is aspiring to return to pre-disaster baseline conditions or if a new normal has been envisioned, the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool will be an invaluable means of gauging progress and changes in the community over time. The Tool will not decide which recovery path is most appropriate for a community, but the ten Recovery Focus Areas, and associated metrics, have been designed to capture the full spectrum of factors affecting community development. While data tracking can begin at any time, a proactive approach to recording and monitoring metric values prior to a disaster occurring will assure that the community has a robust baseline for purposes of comparison during the ongoing process of recovery.

The Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool provides communities a rational, data-driven basis by which to prioritize recovery plans, goals and activities. The Tool is not intended as a means for communities to be compared to each other or to limit the distribution of federal recovery funding. The Tool has been designed as an open-ended instrument, allowing for continuous monitoring of a community’s own recovery through the input and interpretation of a variety of data and qualitative evidence. Research and pilot studies indicate a number of benefits to using the Tool including:

• A consolidated community resource for a wide range of recovery data;
• Tool allows for pre-/post-disaster comparisons over a variety of temporal ranges (days, weeks, months, years);
• The pre-population of selected metrics will help facilitate data entry;
• Supporting and building capacity of local practitioners by providing the basis for informed decision making during recovery;
• A means to “get people thinking” about specific community elements that need to be addressed to both prepare for a potential disaster as well foster a successful recovery following a disaster event;
• Assisting in the development of a detailed community fact base critical to the creation of a high quality pre-/post-recovery plan;
• Building trust and cooperation between departments and agencies and assisting in the critical sharing of data and community information;
• Supporting the development and implementation of a community road map for a safer and more resilient future.

Who should use the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool?

Disaster recovery manager; emergency managers; land use/long-range planners; economic development agencies; environmental planners etc.

Use of the Tool ideally begins in the pre-disaster time period, allowing for the recording of “baseline” data for each available metric. Data points can then be updated at any time. If a disaster should occur, a baseline will then be in place to gauge progress during recovery. Many metrics can be pre-populated using publically available data; other metrics will require more place-specific details, requiring the user to engage in data collection. A certain number of metrics that are inherently qualitative in nature may require the user to provide a narrative account for the baseline status and any additional points of data collection desired. If a pre-disaster baseline condition has not previously been established, data can still be collected and entered at any time deemed appropriate by the user.

Only one geographic scale can currently be considered at a time; for example, one county. Picking the unit of analysis when a new disaster recovery tracker instance determines which data to prepopulate for those metrics where there is publicly available data. Future versions of the Tool may allow for additional geographic designations to be made. Presently, the limitations on geographic scale are largely driven by the availability of pre-populated data for selected metrics.

The exhaustive nature of the metric validation process does not currently allow for alteration of the metrics contained within the Tool, while still maintaining the overall integrity of the tracking system. Future versions of the Tool may allow users to enter custom metrics to take into account unique circumstances within a community.
The current set of metrics were developed through an iterative, multi-step process, including:

1. An exhaustive review of academic literature focusing on disaster recovery
2. A review of state and local disaster recovery plans from counties and municipalities along the Southeast U.S. coast
3. A case study analysis of two communities recovering from recent disasters (New Hanover County, North Carolina and Hoboken, New Jersey)
4. Focus groups and key informant interviews with researchers, practitioners and planners were conducted to gain feedback on a preliminary set of metrics, and changes were made as necessary
5. A pilot study is conducted in four communities impacted by 2012’s Superstorm Sandy to further test the applicability of the proposed recovery metrics

Metric priority is highly dependent on the capacity of each user’s community as well as the type of disaster event that may have occurred. A number of metrics can be pre-populated with data culled from public sources, such as the US Census Bureau, and it may be useful for the user to begin with these entries. The assignment of metrics to Recovery Focus Areas helps direct users to those metrics they feel will be most useful to their community. Once a user has entered a Focus Area, the available metrics for that category will be displayed and described, and potential sources of data for each metric will be suggested. It is not necessary to input data for all of the metrics in order to benefit from this tool, although more information is likely to provide better results when assessing long-term disaster recovery.

Updating the metrics is highly dependent on the nature of the metric in question as well as the data that is available. One of the benefits of the flexibility of the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool is that communities are not governed by rigid data tracking requirements. However, a few critical data points will likely be helpful to get the most accurate picture of a community’s recovery progress: 1) Pre-disaster Baseline Conditions: if available; 2) Disaster Occurrence: if a pre-disaster baseline has not been established, it will be useful to attempt to gather data as soon as possible or to secure historical data; 3) Early Recovery: weeks to months following the disaster; 4) Long-term Recovery: months to years following the disaster; 5) Continuing Development, Risk Reduction and Resilience-Building: ongoing. Each phase of recovery will differ dependent on the community, the disaster and the resources available. Stages of recovery are, by nature, fluid and overlapping. This tool can help the user to evaluate what is needed to move successfully into each new stage and beyond.

Because entered data can be saved within the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool, the time necessary to record the metric values will vary based on each individual user. Some users may choose to enter data all at once. This could take roughly 40-80 hours, depending on data availability, staff capacity and when the user begins engagement with the tool (pre- or post-disaster). Other users may find it necessary to evaluate the metrics over the course of days or weeks. Likewise, the nature of the disaster and the size of the user’s community both affect the time required to enter data. Some metrics can be instantly pre-populated from public data sources- these will likely be the quickest metrics to assess. Other metrics will require a more qualitative, narrative-type assessment; these metrics may take longer to evaluate. A community can choose to track as many or as few of the metrics as they deem appropriate. The Tool’s flexibility allows for communities of varying capacities and capabilities to focus on the metrics they deem to be the most critical without foreclosing later opportunities to enhance the tracking of recovery through the evaluation of additional metrics.