A task force set up by the Homeland Security Policy Institute has issued an interim report which observes that it is time for the concept of “resilience” to move beyond semantic definitions and into the realm where federal, state and local governments – as well as private citizens – take concrete actions to brace themselves for “low probability,” but “high consequence” disasters.“It comes down to being able to look at relative risk and evaluate the relative costs of different types of mitigation efforts and make an informed choice,” says the interim study issued by the preparedness, response, and resilience task force organized by HSPI, which is based at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.
The task force is co-chaired by Michael Balboni, a former deputy secretary for public safety in New York State, Daniel Kaniewski, the deputy director of HSPI, and R. David Paulison, an Administrator of FEMA during former President George W. Bush’s administration.
The task forth noted that resilience has become a popular buzzword among policymakers and homeland security experts, but argued that the term resilience must be “operationalized” to become effective.
