When crisis strikes, it doesn’t take long for people to start finding ways to help themselves.
On 9/11, a self-organising flotilla began to evacuate people from Manhattan even before the Twin Towers fell. Katrina saw the same improvised response.
The Coast Guard did not act alone in its sizeable rescue effort. An emergent and ephemeral flotilla of civilian boat operators also converged on the heavily damaged areas, both on their own initiative and in response to a call for assistance by political leaders. The ability of Coast Guard operational commanders to act relatively autonomously in the field, a strong-hold of experienced personnel, versatile training, an organizational environment that combines uniformed and civilian operations, and the development of a shared vision of what was necessary by both Coast Guard and civilian boat operators facilitated the ability to improvise at a multi-organizational level.
Interestingly, one of New York City’s most dramatic (albeit rarely mentioned) improvised response activities on September 11th, 2001 was the waterborne evacuation of Lower Manhattan… The harbor community did not have plans to execute a mass evacuation of the City, but vessels converged—again, some on their own initiative and others in response to the Coast Guard’s call for all available boats—to improvise a successful evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people. In fact, ferries, tugs, dinner cruise boats, and other private vessels played an even more significant role in the operation than actual Coast Guard vessels. This same operation quickly became involved in transporting critical equipment, supplies, and personnel to Manhattan on return trips to collect more evacuees
Today saw an attempt by Dan Snow to organize a Dunkirk-style evacuation from France, for those unable to get a plane home after Eyjafjallajökull shut down European airspace (more on Europe’s slow motion crisis, here).
Dan has been tweeting as calaisrescue. Unfortunately, it seems the authorities have not taken too kindly to his efforts, bringing the rescue effort to a halt after just three boat loads got away:
It’s not yet clear exactly what happened (I am guessing a health and safety issue) – but any attempt to stamp on bottom-up resilience seems extremely short-sighted. After all, the 2003 European heat wave was such a disaster precisely because people didn’t help their neighbours.
The decision to stamp on the rescue could also make an interesting campaign theme for David Cameron, who has put the Big Society (and resilience, too) at the heart of his bid for office, providing a good example of where the state (presumably the French one, in this case) crowds out community-led initiative.
[BTW those interested in community resilience should read Charlie Edwards’s Resilient Nation – as well as these talks (1, 2) for RUSI.]
Update: BBC says ‘French officials’ took the decision… though there appear to be efforts ongoing to get the show back on the road.
