Preparation for rural fires, floods, heat waves and other extreme phenomena should not end when the emergency passes. For Kate Brady, a researcher at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), the recovery of affected communities can last for years and should be planned with the same foresight as the immediate disaster response.
The disaster recovery expert warns that Australia is entering an era marked by heat waves, rural fires, storms, floods and tropical cyclones, in a context where an El Niño event is associated with higher temperatures, less rainfall and a greater fire risk in some regions.
“Recovery is not fast and rarely a linear process,” says Kate Brady, who led the Australian Red Cross disaster recovery program for 12 years and is currently a senior researcher in UNSW’s HowWeSurvive initiative.
In the first weeks after a disaster, communities often face several problems simultaneously: housing, employment, education, health and financial situation. Added to these are the emotional effects of the experience, which can emerge or intensify after the immediate danger has passed.
“In the first weeks after a disaster, people are often dealing with overlapping impacts,” she explains. “Housing is uncertain, work and schooling are disrupted, there are health and financial concerns – and people are also frequently hit, in waves, by the emotional impact of what they have experienced.”
Recovery does not end when the emergency ends
According to Kate Brady, the initial response is often marked by urgency: contact family, fill out documents, recover belongings or find a place to sleep. But the consequences can be much more complex.
A family may simultaneously have an uninhabitable home, disrupted employment, displaced relatives and children attending different schools. Local services may be closed and informal support networks may have disappeared.
Fatigue, irritability, emotional numbness and a sense of overwhelm can arise during this period and are considered normal responses to a catastrophe. Therefore, the researcher argues that there should not be an expectation that people simply “move on.”
“Prioritizing rest when possible, staying connected to others, accepting practical help and seeking support early – whether from friends and family, health professionals, community organizations or trusted individuals – can make a real difference,” she says.
The expert also recommends avoiding the pressure to resolve all problems immediately. “Recovery is a long-term process and needing support along the way is part of it,” she emphasizes.
Years of recovery and not just months
One of the problems Brady identifies is the expectation that communities will be able to return quickly to normal. A year after major disasters, it is common for people to still be living in caravans, annexes, temporary villages or in relatives’ homes.
“We should not be surprised. In virtually every disaster we have faced, people continue to live in caravans or some form of temporary accommodation a year later. This is not something new we are talking about,” she says.
For the researcher, the question should be different: why are recovery systems still designed as if a prolonged displacement were an unexpected situation?
Brady argues that disaster recovery should be planned for a minimum period of five years. However, the professionals responsible for that recovery are often hired only after the event and through short-term contracts.
“It’s basically the equivalent of hiring firefighters while the blaze is raging and then saying: ‘Come on, hurry up,’” she compares.
This model can force new teams to start by learning about the affected communities when residents are already trying to cope with complex support systems. When another disaster occurs, the process can begin again with another temporary team.
When disasters overlap
The situation becomes even more difficult when a community faces more than one disaster in a short period of time. The researcher notes that the major Australian fires of 2019 and 2020 were preceded by a severe drought and, in some regions, followed by floods. The COVID-19 pandemic then added new difficulties, at a time when families and businesses were trying to rebuild.
“There are no longer years and years between disasters,” she says.
The overlapping crises can aggravate vulnerabilities that already existed before the extreme events, with long-lasting consequences for physical and mental health, children’s education, employment and personal relationships.
For Brady, recovery should therefore consider issues that go far beyond rebuilding a home. People should be able to know whether their children will have support to return to school, whether they will continue to have access to health care, or whether their privacy and dignity will be protected while seeking assistance.
“It is all of this happening at the community level,” she says. “And now we also have multiple disasters hitting communities.”
Communities must participate in decisions
The researcher argues that residents themselves should participate directly in decisions about recovery. They are the ones who know best which services disappeared, which groups are being overlooked and which seemingly efficient solutions may end up creating new problems.
For Brady, disaster preparedness must include, from the outset, planning for what happens afterward.
“For decades, across 30 or 40 years of climate science research, we have known that disasters would increase in frequency and severity,” she states.
She compares the situation to “a rock at the top of a hill that is just starting to gain speed.”
Without long-term planning, specialized recovery teams and sustained investment in communities, she warns, the pattern could repeat itself: emergency, destruction, short-term support, loss of attention and, later, outrage that survivors have not been able to rebuild their lives within an acceptable timeframe.
“The story is always the same,” Brady says. “Outrage over a problem that, in many respects, was entirely predictable.”
