www.buildingsandcities.org/insights/commentaries/lessons-from-disaster-recovery.html

Rethinking the building code means including performance objectives to limit damage and increase redundancy

Mary C. Comerio (University of California, Berkeley) explains why disaster recovery must begin well before a disaster occurs. The goal is to reduce the potential for damage beforehand by making housing delivery (e.g. capabilities and the physical, technical and institutional infrastructures) both more resilient and more capable of building back after disasters.

Introduction

After almost 50 years of research on disaster recovery, any discussion of ‘rebuilding after disasters’ seems almost quaint, and yet, governments and international aid organizations continue to measure the success of recovery by the numbers of damaged roads, infrastructure, and housing units that are replaced or rebuilt. A review of 45 years of experience with recovery by the World Bank (2025a) and many books and journals from a range of disciplines (e.g. political science, law, sociology, economics, architecture and planning) have evaluated the dynamics, the context, the dilemmas, the constraints, the successes and failures, and have proposed models for disaster recovery (a range of examples: Alesch et al. 2009; Blakely et al. 2011; Comerio 1998; Davis & Alexander 2016; Johnson & Olshansky 2017; Quigley & Rosenthal 2008; Sapat & Esnard 2017; Platt 1999).

Ultimately, it is evident that we cannot keep up with the needs of families and their communities. Globally, unprecedented disaster risks now exist, especially due to a warming planet, severe storms and other extreme weather (not counting conflicts). The World Bank (2025b) estimates there are 14 million homes now lost to disasters annually, leading to loss of life and difficult, expensive, and time-consuming reconstruction efforts. For any country to plan, finance, and deliver sustainable, inclusive, and shock-resistant housing and infrastructure solutions after a crisis, it is necessary to build better before to build safer communities and infrastructure systems, which will speed recovery and limit the cycles of vulnerability.

Building resilience and capacity

With lessons from years of experience with disaster recovery, governments, funders, NGOs, local communities and professionals need to consider how to invest in adaptive and preventative measures in advance, combined with the notion of expanding housing and infrastructure capacity.¹ The integration of these concepts creates a new way to think about building proactive resilience as a policy objective guiding the design of new housing and infrastructure programs that reduce vulnerabilities and are both sustainable and safe.

In a recent opinion paper, Comerio (2025) provides several examples and lessons from recent programs that begin to enhance both resilience and capacity. The paper describes one example: A National Science Foundation funded “Grand Challenge” multi-disciplinary research project focused on mitigating collapse hazards in nonductile concrete buildings, completed in late 2014. This included a case study based in Los Angeles that evaluated potential losses and proposed alternative policy solutions (Anagnos et al. 2016). The findings were widely covered by the Los Angeles Times.

The mayor subsequently convened a task force in January 2015 and their report, Resilience by Design (2015), was adopted by the LA City Council in December 2015. The ordinance created a framework for improved performance in public infrastructure (particularly the water and telecommunication systems) and privately owned existing buildings (specifically soft-story apartments² and pre-1980 concrete buildings). Los Angeles Water and Power developed a 50-year program to upgrade the physical system, investing US$12–US$15 billion in first 20 years, plus ongoing financial support for local pipeline upgrades with routine maintenance. The plan also included a variety of programs such as water conservation, groundwater recovery, desalinization and others to improve long-range water supplies as well as sustainability (LA County Public Works 2023).

Shortly thereafter, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST 2018) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued two reports focused on improved recovery times with a “functional recovery” approach (including limits on time-to-recovery by building-type³ in the codes (NIST-FEMA 2021). These examples demonstrate an approach to acknowledging and regulating resilience in the design and maintenance of the physical environment in the private and public sectors. There is much more work to be done on the role of community, financial, social, institutional, and ecological components of resilience.

Lessons from housing

The ever-increasing impact of natural disasters are only one part of the overall global housing need:

“By 2030, UN-Habitat estimates that 3 billion people, about 40 per cent of the world’s population, will need access to adequate housing. This translates into a demand for 96,000 new affordable and accessible housing units every day. Additionally, an estimated 100 million people worldwide are homeless and one in four people live in harmful conditions that to their health, safety and prosperity.” (UN-Habitat n.d.)

In the past 45 years, the World Bank has played an increasing role in housing development and reconstruction in countries affected by disasters. In 2006, the Bank established the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR) a global partnership between the World Bank, UN agencies and bilateral donors. One of its missions has been to mainstream disaster reduction and climate change adaptation. In part, GFDRR was a response to the UN 2005-2015 Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), an international agreement on disaster risk reduction (DRR) which arose from a 168-nation UN conference held in Kyoto, Japan, in 2005.

Since then, GFDRR together with many UN agencies, have brought the concepts of resilience in disaster recovery to nations around the globe. Recently, GFDRR published a paper reviewing 45 years of housing reconstruction. The paper makes clear that while it appears that although targets for numbers of units supplied were often met, these were often for temporary housing, and did not meet the beneficiaries needs, particularly for permanent housing (World Bank 2025a). 

Further, they found that successful housing solutions hinged on markets ready to deliver resilient housing solutions, the joint and coordinated action of multiple public and private actors (including local governments), and the effective promotion and management of community participation. Based on these findings, the paper argues that resilient housing capacity ought to be the key objective driving new housing programs combined with increasing housing capacity in in countries exposed to hazard and climate risks (World Bank 2025a).

These findings come not only from their own programs but from many academic reviews of disaster recovery efforts (Comerio 2012; Johnson & Olshansky 2017; Mukherji 2017, 2019; Sapat & Esnard 2017). Although much progress in recovery programs and improving aid has been made globally across many agencies and governments, the stark reality is that increasing climate disasters, and conflicts make it hard to keep up with recovery needs, and the poor and disenfranchised are rarely well served, if at all.

All the lessons from the disaster recovery seem to support the concept of investing in housing capacity before disaster strikes (Comerio 2025; World Bank 2022a, 2022b, 2025a, 2025b). The recovery literature describes successful aid delivery as having three critical components necessary for equity, mitigation, and sustainable development:

• adaptable government programs
• locally targeted agendas
• community participation and capacity building.

Each of those would benefit from having an experienced and nimble central government housing agency in-place, with the capacity to deliver housing based on need.

While the concept of housing capacity can be construed in various ways, it is defined here as “the ability of governments to develop a range of competencies and instruments, including policies and programs, for supporting the delivery of housing solutions to those in need” (World Bank 2022b) These may include a housing census, a needs assessments for housing, materials and labor, programs for regional needs as well as financing mechanisms, creation of building standards and management for public programs.

The goal of building capacity to “build better before” is a large step beyond a recovery goal of “build back better” because it is aimed at lowering a country’s housing deficit and providing a range of affordable housing options to both urban and rural communities. To build capacity before disaster strikes, so that housing programs, financial management systems, technical capacity, and lines of communication are already in place, requires creating adaptable central government agencies to support locally driven housing programs to serve owners, renters, and informal dwellers, with funding and technical assistance.

Conclusions

Lessons from disasters in recent history can enumerate the successful components of any housing recovery program, but the experience also suggests a critical need to address the differences between urban and rural settings, the specific experience of renters and informal dwellers, and to support the development of housing programs that institutionalize solutions to unmet needs before disaster strikes, so that the overall housing system is both more resilient and more capable of building back better after disasters.

Lending and donor organizations should recognize that creating inclusive housing finance and development programs with disaster recovery strategies is a win-win for both kinds of programs. The best way to mitigate the cost and time required for post-disaster reconstruction is to reduce the potential for damage beforehand. Investing in housing capacity in the public and private sectors will enhance crisis preparedness and help provide basic housing to more people.

Notes

1.     Capacity is defined as the capacity of governments and societies to devise and execute housing, social and physical infrastructure solutions.

2.    A soft-story building is a structure where the ground floor is significantly weaker than the floors above it. This may be due to an open parking garage, large unobstructed commercial spaces, or other openings in places where a shear wall would normally be required for structural stability in an earthquake.

3.    Functional recovery is a performance objective that goes beyond just ensuring life safety and focuses on minimizing downtime by allowing essential services to be quicky restored. Here the building types designated to be designed for functional recovery include not only hospital emergency rooms, fire and police stations, and emergency call centers, but also include community essential services such as grocery stores, schools, health care services, elderly housing and other local building functions whose operations are critical to the local community. To include performance objectives in the building code would mean limiting expected damage to building systems in a disaster and have features like backup power and redundant systems to ensure it can continue providing services immediately after the event, rather than needing to wait for repairs.

References

Alesch D.J., Arendt L.A. & Holly J.N. (2009). Managing for Long-Term Community Recovery in the Aftermath of Disaster. Fairfax VA: Public Entity Risk Institute.

Anagnos T., Comerio M.C. & Stewart J.S. (2016). Earthquake loss estimates and policy implications for nonductile concrete buildings in Los Angeles. Earthquake Spectra, 32:4 p. 1951-1973. https://doi.org/10.1193/060415EQS088M

Blakely E.J., Birch E.L., Anglin R.V. & Hayashi H. (2011). Managing Urban Disaster Recovery: Policy, Planning, Concepts and Cases. Crowthorne, UK: Crisis Response Publications.

City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office. (2015). Resilience By Design. Los Angeles, CA: City of Los Angeles.

Comerio M. (1998). Disaster Hits Home: New Policy for Urban Housing Recovery. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Comerio M.C. (2012). Resilience, recovery and community renewal, Proceedings: 15th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (15WCEE), Lisbon: Sociedade Portuguesa de Engenharia Sismica (SPES). ISBN: 9781634396516.

Comerio M.C. (2025). Rethinking resilience policy and practice. Earthquake Spectra, Sage Journals. https://doi.org/10.1177/87552930251322188

Davis I. & Alexander D. (2016). Recovery from Disaster. London and New York: Routledge.

Johnson L.A. & Olshansky R.B. (2017). After Great Disasters: An In-Depth Analysis of How Six Countries Managed Community Recovery. New York: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

LA County Public Works. (2023). Los Angeles County Water Plan: Water Supply Resilience. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Department of Public Works; Woodard & Curran.

Mukherji A. (2017). Post-disaster housing recovery. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.013.82  

Mukherji A. (2019). Funding flows: transboundary considerations of disaster recovery. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.013.223

NIST. (2018). Research Needs to Support Immediate Occupancy Building Performance Objective Following Natural Hazard Events. (NIST Special Publication 1224). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce.

NIST-FEMA. (2021). Recommended Options for Improving the Built Environment for Post-Earthquake Reoccupancy and Functional Recovery Time. (NIST-FEMA Special Publication FEMA P-2090/NIST SP-1254). Washington, DC: Department of Homeland Security; U.S. Department of Commerce.

Platt R.H. (1999). Disasters and Democracy: The Politics of Extreme Natural Events. Washington DC: Island Press.

Quigley J.M. & Rothenthal L.A. (2008). Risking House and Home: Disasters, Cities, Public Policy. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Public Policy Press, Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley.

Sapat A. & Esnard A.-M., eds. (2017). Coming Home After Disaster: Multiple Dimensions of Housing Recovery. Boca Raton, FL: Routledge.

UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme). (n.d.) Housing. https://unhabitat.org/topic/housing

World Bank. (2022a). Navigating Multiple Crises, Staying the Course on Long-term Development. Global Crisis Response Framework Paper. Washington DC: World Bank Group.

World Bank. (2022b). Investing in Housing Capacity to Improve Crisis Preparedness, Policy Note. Global Program for Resilient Housing, (M. Comerio, primary author), Washington DC: GFDRR, World Bank Group.

World Bank. (2025a). Housing Policy for a New Paradigm Part 1, 45 Years of Lessons from the World Bank Housing Reconstruction Projects. Resilient Housing Team, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), Washington DC: World Bank Group.

World Bank. (2025b). Housing Policy for a New Paradigm Part 2, Resilient Housing Capacity: A Diagnostic Tool for the World Bank. Resilient Housing Team, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), Washington DC: World Bank Group.

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