During the past few years, I have been involved in the disaster reconstruction project in New Orleans. In April of this year, about 20 people from New Orleans including civil activity leaders and responsible government officials visited Tokyo to meet and talk with victims of Miyakejima volcanic eruption disaster and people living in flood-prone areas of Tokyo. We visited New Orleans several times from Japan. Through our interactions, we have come to realize anew that there are many common things to learn from disasters even though there are differences in terms of actual conditions in each country or region, cause of disasters, or situations.

It was in September of 2005 that the powerful Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.
Images of flooded urban areas, damaged houses and victims cramped into small shelters were broadcasted all over the world. At that time, the first question that came into my mind was, “Why did 1,300 people die when it was known that a hurricane was coming?” In the nearby state of Alabama, there was no loss of life because residents were evacuated ahead of time. Therefore, I asked around about this fact in New Orleans.

While we could not get any convincing answer from people involved in politics, government or disaster prevention, Mr. Byron Harrell, a leader of the city’s business community, pointed out, “Since 47% of African-American citizens are illiterate and do not read newspapers or watch the news, they could not follow instructions to evacuate.”

In order to remove the cause of becoming victims, Mr. Harrell and others started charter schools (free schools) to teach how to read and write. Mr. Harrell says, “Disaster will not go away unless people learn how to read and write, and acquire scientific knowledge on what a disaster, flood damage, hurricane, or weather forecasting mean. Therefore, it will take many more years until we achieve the real reconstruction of New Orleans.”

The real scary thing about disasters is that the underlying weakness within the region or society that is normally hidden under the surface bursts out at the time of a disaster.
The fundamental of disaster countermeasure is to enhance the day-to-day disaster prevention capability of the region. This is something that we must firmly keep in mind.

As for reconstruction from disasters, local governments generally lead the effort in Japan, whereas in the U.S., civil activity groups tend to take the leading role in most cases. It is not a question of which is better than the other, as both Japan and the U.S. have their own distinctive feature. However, as for the mechanism to collect private capital by civil activity groups, it seems necessary to enhance the system in Japan and strengthen the financial power of civic movements.

In Japan, generally speaking, residents within a region are closely knit. When all the residents in Miyakejima evacuated to Tokyo due to a volcanic eruption and spent four and a half years there from September 2000, they split up to and moved into vacant houses in public housing and residents in the neighboring communities provided support for them. Because of the support by the neighbors, there were no solitary deaths which often occur at the time of disasters.

Damaged houses in nine districts below in New Orleans that have been left abandoned for two years since the disaster give the impression that reconstruction is proceeding at a sluggish pace; however, citizens are making a steady step-by-step progress toward building a society that is strong against disasters. If we have something to learn from the U.S. society, it would be the voluntary efforts by the civil society that are independent from the government.

Japan is a country prone to earthquakes. This is because four plates that constitute the earth’s surface are overlapping at the Japanese Archipelago. That is the reason why we constructed buildings and infrastructure that can withstand earthquakes. Floods are a daily occurrence. Therefore, countermeasures are taken quite seriously. As for the Arakawa River in the Kanto region, the river downstream of Iwabuchi is all artificial. A river with a width of 500 meters was built during the Taisho Period to protect cities against flooding of the Sumida River. Japan has 108 active volcanoes out of about 800 around the world. In recent years, various volcanoes including Mount Usu, Sakurajima, Izu Oshima and Miyakejima have been erupting repeatedly but people still live there.

Japan is a country that coexists with disasters. Various wisdoms of life were born from this condition and led to advances in science and technology. Japan is also a country that is advanced in energy conservation. As the production of energy resources were limited, frameworks to conserve energy were built both in the aspects of industry and life. I believe that transmitting such know-how on disaster prevention or energy conservation to the world will lead to the progress and happiness of human society.

New Orleans is often said to be the bottom of a soup bowl. This was also caused by ground subsidence due to pumping of underground resources, etc. In Tokyo, Japan’s capital, more than 2 million people live below sea level, in the so-called zero-meter areas. They are protected by tide embankments, levees, floodgates and pumps. Due to climate changes, there will be an increase in countries and regions that need know-how on these technologies and system in the future. I believe it is important to keep exchanging various disaster affected experiences and disaster countermeasures, not just between Japan and the U.S. but around the world as well.

The revival of nine districts below has stopped in New Orleans.

The group from New Orleans visited Japan and observed the zero-meter areas in Tokyo.

Chinese / French / Japanese