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The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation

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Former Coast Guard Commander Steven Flynn and author of "America The Vulnerable" makes a convincing case that the United States is nowhere close to being ready for the next terrorist attack or natural disaster, which he emphatically states will occur. According to him, we are living on borrowed time.

Without political partisanship, the author states that our whole policy and reaction to terrorism since September 11, 2001 has been in the wrong direction, and the wrong place using the wrong rationale. Flynn challenges Mr. Bush's policy of "Fight terrorism abroad so we don't have to fight them at home." He discounts this for obvious reasons: 1) by virtue of 9/11, they have already found their way here, or know how to get here. 2) He shows that many of the terrorist attacks worldwide have come from natives, not aliens 3) The military is not the way, nor has the means to fight terrorism.

Policy is not the only gripe that Flynn has with the federal government. It is their lack of priorities, secrecy, and failure to rebuild our aging infrastructure, or partner with private industry in creating more secure plants, docks, ports, airports, rail yards, etc. Without government incentives or suppport, there is little likelihood that private industry will invest in security that will make their product or service less competitive and cost more unless the government provides industry-wide incentives.

He rails against poor prioritizing aided by a lethargic federal government mired in indifference. He provides countless examples of aging, obsolete, and decaying infrastructure that are ripe targets for a population that mostly lives near coastlines, or places prone to forest fires, tornadoes, floods, and other natural disasters. All of them are being ignored and underfunded by a complacent population that doesn't realize that taxes they complain about, are used for maintenance of the infrastructure that keeps them safe. One of his more compelling arguments is that one of every dollar spent on preparation and maintenance saves seven dollars in reaction to catastrophes.

A prime example of neglected infrastructure and ineffectual response is Hurricane Katrina where an enfeebled F.E.M.A. came off performing like the Keystone Cops on Prozac. The Coast Guard, was the only agency that swung into action, thus proving that people can act responsibly without waiting to be told what to do. (Semper Peratus!)

Flynn contends that an informed public will react far more responsibly than one that is kept in the dark through secrecy and lack of trust. The most obvious proof of this was United Flight 93 on 9/11. A secretive and helpless governmnet was unable to protect its citizens, or do anything to prevent the plane from hitting its target. When the passengers realized that they were going to become a missile like the planes before them, they took matters into their own hands, and prevented further catastrophe by retaking the plane.

This book is a siren song for the federal government to cease chasing the tail of one endless study after another, and take action by reshaping policy, informing, and trusting our people, rebuilding our infrastructure, and working with private industry. It is also short, readable, and makes you wonder why no one in the government has adopted this man's ideas. It is also a wake-up call. An informed public needs to wake up a somnambulistic government, and shake them into effective action. Or, maybe it's time we kick them out if they don't.

Actually, all are highly recommended while the clock is still ticking.

This is an exceptional book. This should be required reading at FEMA, in Congress, and the White House.

I've admired Flynn ever since I read America the Vulnerable a few years ago, and he continues to impress me with his pragmatic approach to homeland security. While his first book dealt primarily with hardening America against terrorism, this one takes a wider view and deals with the full spectrum of disasters--man made and natural--that could befall us.

His basic arguments are simple--that most measures taken since 9/11 have been largely for psychological benefit and that major vulnerabilities still exist because of failing infrastructure, misallocated funds, poor city planning, lack of leadership etc. He argues that the federal government has missed an opportunity to lead a national effort to prepare for future disasters (instead it has passed responsibility to state/local officials), failed to engage America's most important resource--its citizenry, and avoided working with the private sector. His arguments are well-supported and convincing.

Flynn is also highly critical of the current administration's "the best defense is a strong offense" strategy. Here he will be criticized by some, but as the Islamic terrorist threat continues to evolve from the 9/11 model (foreign groups with direct connections to key leaders) to the 7/11 model (homegrown radicals who are simply inspired by foreigners), his argument will become all the more prescient. Flynn represents the other end of the spectrum--"the best defense is a good defense"--and perhaps there is room for a more balanced approach. Maybe: "The best defense is both a strong offense and a strong defense"?

In the final chapter he presents ten ideas that should be adopted to strengthen the country. Some of these will sound familiar to those who read his first book. This is less an indication that Flynn can't come up with new ideas. Rather, it is proof that the government simply isn't acting.

Unfortunately for the security and resiliency of the United States, we are in the grip of contradictory and ill-advised thinking concerning the role of government in securing the well-being of our nation. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy that government can't do the job, when its agencies and programs are ill-conceived, under-funded, and poorly managed. On the other hand, it is disingenuously held that private businesses operating in marketplaces will necessarily find the right solution to all of our problems.

In lieu of the sham disaster agencies whose missions are to prevent and deal with disaster, that is, the Dept of Homeland Security and FEMA, the author proposes an overarching federal agency, the Infrastructure Resiliency Commission, that would have the power to examine the vulnerabilities of the US from either nature or man, coordinate programs to upgrade infrastructure and limit exposures to disasters, and to respond quickly and effectively when disasters do strike. He recommends the repeal of many of the dubious tax cuts over the last few years to fund these huge and critical programs. He regards as extremely simplistic the idea that our threats are mainly external and can be mostly eliminated through the exercise of military power. As is pointed out, it is not that home-grown terrorists won't strike; the issue is whether we can limit the damage and respond effectively.

The private sector does have a very important role to play in upgrading our approach to potential disasters, but governmental regulation and incentives will be required. It is wishful thinking to contend that businesses will absorb costs that will put them at a competitive disadvantage to implement security and safety measures that may not have a payoff. Examples of business actions to enhance security and safety would be to use non-lethal chemicals in processes, inspect containers before shipping to the US, or to be available as first responders to natural disasters.

The author makes clear our fragility to both natural and man-induced disasters. We are in the midst of global warming with the possibilities of more frequent severe storms at the same time that there has been a shift of population to coastal areas living in highly questionable areas. The Katrina situation is only the tip of that iceberg. Our public health system has been reduced and defunded to such an extent that an epidemic of Asian bird-flu could overwhelm our health facilities. Our national electrical grid has proven to be at risk over the slightest disturbances, let alone a planned assault. Americans seem to be largely oblivious to many such realistic threats; preparation is discounted or disregarded.

The book, though short, is a bit redundant in places. However, the author does provide a very useful and sobering corrective to the notion that our main threats are external and can be solved through military might. He does not discuss the possibilities for the political will to really address our weaknesses. One suspects that the current political and economic ideology in the US may overwhelm any chance to truly address our national vulnerabilities at great peril to our long-term survival.

This is a major contribution to national security & prosperity that is being actively ignored by Congress. We must all buy the book and force the issue. HR 1 from the House purports to implement the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission but does so in a shoddy, incomplete, and largely anti-democratic fashion, imposing the secret stovepipe model of one-way federal to state communications, without any respect (or understanding) of what this author recommends instead, which is to add the public to the loop, and also create localized means of facilitating communications among all the leaders--county government, law enforcement, business, academic, labor, religious, etc.

This book is every bit as good-even better--than the author's first book, "America the Vulnerable," which I reviewed and rated very highly. I recommend that both be bought, and then waved in every public meeting possible.

The major leap forward in this book is the juxtaposition of localized resilience to disaster of any kind (not just terrorism), with the very pointed and strong dismay about how we are wasting $700 billion a year on a heavy-metal military to fight (and anger) people overseas, while spending less than $70 million a year on key infrastructure and homeland defense needs. While the Department of Homeland Defense now has roughly $36 billion a year (perhaps even more), they are giving waste, fraud, and mismanagement a completely new meaning, taking pathological irrelevance to new heights. This is especially true of their antiquated approach to intelligence and not sharing information nor being receptive to bottom up non-secret information.

I especially respect the author's detailed cataloguing of our infrastructure vulnerabilities that are of our own making. Badly patched dams, high-rises built on sand, hospitals with no excess capacity, power grids over 50 years old that a single tree can bring down, waterways that are broken, and that if broken any more cannot deliver coal to run power plants essential to Middle American commerce, the list goes on. Especially frightening in the concept of the firestorm, which I first encountered in the 1980's when a newspaper looked at the NYC water mains, most built in the 1920's (that's the nineteen TWENTIES). If they break in a certain way, and a fire starts, NYC gets burned to the ground.

The author is gifted as both a former Coast Guard officer, and as a serious and articulate scholar that has done his homework. Especially valuable to me was his citation of a 2005 series of studies done by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), in which our Nation received 4 C's, 10 D's, and one Incomplete. That alone is grounds for the impeachment and dismissal of every Governor and every Senator and every Congressman. These people are not minding the public interest in a substantive sustainable way.

I have the word "holistic" written in my notes. This author provides in this book both a "big picture" and a whole range of vignettes that drive home the fact that the devil is in the details, and no one, at the Federal or the State levels, with a handful of exceptions, is actually minding the public interest.

He offers specific recommendations for the local level including improved webcam surveillance of ports and waterfronts, a bigger COPS II program, infrastructure committees with weight, a tax on the wealthiest beneficiaries of the public infrastructure, and his older recommendation from the first book, pushing cargo inspections overseas and incentivizing those that comply with Green Lanes that save hundred of thousands in ship and crew time.

Two success stories are Project Impact, and the Disaster Resistant Business (DRB) Program.

The Coast Guard is under-funded in all respects and I agree with this. As one who designed, with Norman Polmar and Ron O'Rourke, the 450-ship Navy for global coverage, I absolutely agree that we can afford to scrap plans for more nuclear carriers and B-2 bombers, and instead fund the resilience and disaster relief and waterway safety needs of the Coast Guard.

The author concludes that our top priority should not be a heavy-metal military global war, but rather a focus on being able to weather the age of terrorism (that I would add, Bush-Cheney have done more to exacerbate than anyone else--Cheney started this war, not Bin Laden, and Larry Silverstein murdered most of those who died at the World Trade Center, not Bin Laden. For these two individuals to not have been indicted, along with Rudy "scoop and dump" Guliani, tells me that our entire government is corrupt and inattentive to the public interest. It is time to either reconstitute the entire government, or break up into the "Nine Nations" and stop giving Washington money to waste on Dick Cheney's favorite crime syndicates).

The author ends very persuasively with the admonition that the Federal Government is totally out of date and unable to shift from stovepipe secrecy to networked information sharing and shared bottom up resilient decision making. He recommends that we begin at the home and neighborhood level, and then work up to the village, county, and state level. He does not suggest what can be done to beat the Federal government back into affordable utility.

Here is an abbreviated version of the ten recommendations at the end of the book:

1) Force Washington to build national resiliency at home
2) Put terrorism in the context of the other threats (see Wikipedia, "Ten Threats")
3) Fix the infrastructure now
4) Inform the American people, they are our greatest asset
5) Tap the ingenuity and resources of the private sector
6) Do not underestimate the value of individual preparedness
7) Do not allow government to pretend the pandemic will not happen
8) Discourage construction along vulnerable coastlines and in flood plains
9) Properly fund and support local police and emergency responders
10) Promote the concept of resiliency as a global imperative.

The author's bottom line is clear: the Federal Government is in denial, and also ignorant. We can do better. Public anger needed NOW.

Related Helpful Books on Collapse of Federal Government:
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

Steve Flynn has been trying to get us to pay attention for a few years now. This is his second book; AMERICA THE VULNERABLE was the first. This book takes a broader, more practical and more troubling view. Flynn points out that disasters, whether terrorist caused or natural, impact our complex social and economic systems in the same way: they generate paralyzing disruption. In each case, the remedy is the same: develop resilient individual and collective response capablities in order to endure the disruption. Whether we face hurricaines, plagues or weapons of mass destruction, each disaster faces us with the need to endure and recover.
A former Coast Guard officer, Flynn brings a perspective on survival preparedness that comes from practical training and experience. This is the perspective that we must all adopt as we find ourselves enmeshed in ever more complex and tightly-linked systems subject to the risk of cascading catastrophes.
Give this book to people you care about. You may save lives.

This book provides good information about making our country more prepared for natural or man-made disasters by using an all hazards approach. Some of the presented ideas are great others are very opinionated. You can tell the author is pro Coast Guard since he recommends they be in charge of everything, just a bit biased, but a good book overall.

Stephen Flynn travels a lot --- and everywhere he goes he finds crumbling bridges, inadequate highway systems, overtaxed hospitals, parochial politicians, obsolete communications gear, neglected or nonexistent planning, and a citizenry that does not seem to give a damn about any of these things. This book --- his second on the subject --- is his strident wake-up call, a plea that something be done before the inevitable disaster strikes.

His case rests on two major premises: that more 9/11s and Katrinas are a certainty, and that of the two, future Katrinas are the more to be feared because they will be more frequent and will impact more people directly. Our present political and popular fixation on terrorism alone he finds shortsighted and foolish. He calls for measures to deal with both at the same time.

Flynn's method is to construct hypothetical scenarios --- a terrorist attack on a ship carrying liquefied natural gas in Boston Harbor, a catastrophic earthquake that devastates north-central California --- and then to demonstrate the inadequacy of existing means to either prevent the event or minimize the damage they cause. His scenarios are generally based on authoritative sources as well as his own observations. In every case his conclusions are dismal: inability to respond quickly and efficiently, widespread panic, enormous casualties, government ineptitude. Yet the general public, he says, lives in an "almost adolescent sense of denial," preferring to just keep fingers crossed and hope that such things will not happen, or if they do happen, it will be somewhere else.

Flynn tries gamely to be nonpolitical about all this, but his indictment of the Bush administration and the small-government fetish of many politicians is plain. He deplores the Iraq War as a diversion of funds and resources from the place where real threats are much more evident --- here at home.

Some of his strictures are hardly new (e.g., the governmental passion for secrecy that keeps bureaucrats from sharing vital information, the inability of "first responders" and "first preventers" to communicate with each other, the absence of true collaboration between public and private agencies at times of crisis, the unfortunate preference for pork-barrel politics over meeting really urgent needs). But he goes well beyond these obvious truths, condemning public indifference or even ignorance of what needs to be done urgently. Our nation is "brittle," he says, and needs to be made more "resilient" before it is too late. Flynn obviously sees himself as Paul Revere on a coast to coast midnight ride.

There is a strain of special pleading in the book. Flynn, himself a long-serving officer in the Coast Guard, tells again the familiar story of how well that agency performed in New Orleans in 2005 --- then goes on to propose that it be given the leading role in domestic disaster response, with FEMA demoted to secondary status. It may well be a good idea, but Flynn is not exactly an impartial judge.

The obvious question here is: If all this work needs to be done pronto, how are we to pay for it? Flynn proposes a new agency, the "Infrastructure Resiliency Commission," insulated from pork-barrel political pressure. He would pay the enormous cost of quickly making us into a "resilient" nation with money from five sources: funds from the estate tax that the administration wants to end altogether, repeal of the tax cuts enacted under Bush, a dollar-a-gallon gasoline tax, funds from the defense budget and from state and city governments. One can virtually hear the howls of protest from motorists, conservative politicians, the Pentagon and local officials. Were I a betting man, I would not bet on this one.

Nonetheless, this is an important and often eloquent book. One hopes that Flynn/Paul Revere will be heeded, and that he is not like poor Cassandra, who was given the gift of prophecy, but along with it the curse that no one would believe anything she said.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn

I thought this book was a great read for many reasons. First off, the author gives a few hypothetical cases of another terrorist attack on American soil. He does this not to incite fear, but just to prove how vulnerable our infrastructures are (waterways, ports, canals, oil refineries, etc). He mentions how old and antiquated they are and how the government is not pumping enough money to fix or upgrade those resources. Secondly, he gives several examples of how this can change and why it needs to be done. Lastly, (but not in this order) he also ties this in with our vulnerablity to natural disasters. "The Edge of Disaster" is a disaster that can be both man-made or natural. If you want to read about things that are not being discussed in the media that are very critical to the foundation of this country, then this is a must read!!

Stephen Flynn writes factually and with passion. America has neglected it's infrastructure and is not prepared for coming disasters. Great countries always fail from the inside. We should heed these warnings.

It is generally considered that defending the lives and property of its citizens is a central responsibility of all levels of government. In the U.S. the execution of this responsibility by the federal government has been misinterpreted to equate to fighting a so-called war against a phantom enemy called `Terror'. Yet as this book makes clear, National Security, the rubric under which this responsibility falls, incorporates not only protection against manmade and natural disasters, but recovery from them as well. The truth is that it is impossible for any country to provide 100 per cent protection from either and prudence would suggest that robust recovery plans are an essential part of national security.

Flynn argues in this book that the U.S. local and federal governments should embrace both risk management and risk mitigation as part of their security strategies. He makes the point that dangers of injury, death, and loss (i.e. risk) are unavoidable, but can be minimized with proper planning and execution. In this book he provides a realistic appraisal of the type vulnerabilities that put the U.S. at risk from manmade and natural forces and suggests methods to mitigate this risk. His suggestions are sound and founded in his own experience as a former U.S. Coast Guard Officer. He notes that some local jurisdictions have actually undertaken risk analysis and mitigation, but that the federal government apparently finds that risk management is a politically incorrect concept.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the obvious agency responsible for assessing National Security risks and their mitigation, but appears unable or unwilling to do so. Rather than implementing realistic risk management, DHS has chosen to try to provide complete protection against everything and has succeeded in protecting very little. In this conclusion Flynn very much complements the description of DHS given by Clark Kent Ervin in his book "Open Target" (Amazon.com).

Indeed this reviewer would suggest that readers interested in National Security issues would be advised to read both books.