We know how to save lives in disasters - why don't we? | Sarah Tuneberg | TEDxMileHigh

"Calling hurricanes, floods, wildfires and extreme heatwaves 'natural' obfuscates our human responsibility. It lets us off the hook for the death and destruction." By the end of this jaw-dropping talk with disaster mitigation and recovery expert Sarah Tuneberg, you'll rethink everything you thought you knew about so-called natural disasters. Pay attention – it just might save your life.

For over a decade, Sarah Tuneberg worked in public health and emergency management in places like South Sudan and post-Katrina New Orleans. She founded Geospiza on the belief that data can save lives. Her interdisciplinary team develops data-driven, evidence-based solutions that reduce risk and enhance resilience, especially for the most vulnerable populations who suffer disproportionately in disaster. When she’s not protecting us from hurricanes, fires, floods, and tornadoes, she’s catching up on the latest celebrity gossip, her guilty pleasure.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

In August 2017,

Hurricane Harvey devastated communities
across Texas and Louisiana.

Three and a half feet of rain
fell in just four days.

A hundred and fifty thousand
houses were flooded.

Seventeen thousand people
had to be rescued from the flood,

and more than 36 people died.

We watched, rapt.

Our hearts broke
for those who lost everything

and soared with pride at the sight
of the spontaneous volunteers,

our Cajun Navy,

who deputized themselves
and their fishing boats

to rescue stranded survivors.

(Applause)

"Unprecedented," we said.

"Unforeseen."

"A terrible act of God."

"One of the worst
natural disasters in US history."

But you know what?

I don't agree.

Yes, of course,

what happened in
Hurricane Harvey was horrific,

but it's the "natural"
in "natural disaster"

that I take issue with.

Just like climate change is 100% real
and caused by humans ...

(Cheers) (Applause)

so are what we call "natural disasters."

Yes, of course, wind, rain and hurricanes
are naturally occurring,

but to call the death and destruction
caused by these events "natural"

makes their devastation seem inevitable
and out of our control.

But it is not out of our control.

(Applause)

I have been an emergency
manager for 15 years.

Most of my time was spent
helping communities prepare for disaster.

But I've also helped them

respond to and recover from more
than 50 presidentially declared disasters,

from Katrina to Maria,

Northern California wildfires
to Colorado floods,

and countless in between.

Out of that experience,
I cofounded a company called Geospiza,

where we use data to help
companies and communities

understand and mitigate
their disaster risk.

And across all of that,
all of that experience,

the key thing I learned

is that nearly all
of the trauma and tragedy

we call "natural disaster"

is not only predictable; it's preventable.

Disasters are 100%

a result of poor human decision-making.

That anybody in this country should die

or lose everything as a result
of a so-called natural disaster

should make you angry to your core.

Incredible advances in mapping,
modeling and atmospheric science

have given us 7 to 10 days notice
of a hurricane's landfall

and allowed us to predict,
often to the individual house,

how much damage we should expect.

Flood modeling is so robust
that days, days in advance,

we can predict on what day,
at what time and what locations

we expect rivers to overtop their banks.

And even more amazing than our ability
to predict a specific event

is our knowledge of how
natural hazards affect communities

and what we can do to prevent the damage.

To show you what I mean,

let's take a deeper look
at Houston and Harvey.

Houston is the largest US city
with no formal zoning.

And between the late 90s and Harvey,
it was also one of the fastest growing.

At its peek,

275 people moved to Houston each day,

and with all of those people
came the need for housing.

Houston accommodated

by paving over more than 30%
of the wetland and prairie,

and trading naturally absorbent land
for impervious houses, driveways and roads

has consequences.

Rain water can't rapidly absorb and stow.

Instead, it funnels, collects ...

and floods!

More than a decade before Harvey,

a US Army Corps of Engineers' report
mapped locations in Houston

that would experience
catastrophic flooding

in significant rain events.

But developers,
together with city officials,

willfully disregarded that known risk.

They traded short-term financial gains

for the long-term safety
of future residents.

They explicitly chose to build in areas
they knew would flood,

and people died!

The disaster data illuminates
another heartbreaking reality.

Because disasters are not natural
but a result of human decision-making,

the same systemic inequities
that exist in our community every day

are magnified in disaster.

Disasters do not distribute
their wrath equally.

Historically marginalized communities
suffer disproportionately.

Through redlining

and by placing affordable housing
in high-risk geographies

like the Lower Ninth Ward,
in New Orleans,

or the Far Rockaway, in Queens,

we've created a system where brown,
black, disabled and poor people

are far more likely to have their lives
and livelihoods washed away.

And the super rich,
like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West,

hire private firefighters
to protect their homes,

while the rest of us depend
on a public firefighting force

that is 69% volunteers!

Those Northern California wildfires

are another example
of our failure to use data.

Medicare data available
to emergency managers

identifies people who have
daily in-home healthcare.

Other data identifies people
who have a hearing impairment.

Websites show us where
there's spotty cell phone signal,

and public-facing notification plans
tell us that in an emergency,

evacuation orders
will be issued by a text message

and that police will drive
through neighborhoods,

announcing evacuation
from their bullhorns.

A simple overlay of all
of these elements tells us

there are huge numbers of people
for whom these strategies would not work.

We knew they wouldn't hear the text alert,

and we knew that even if they could hear
a bullhorn from the street,

they wouldn't have been able
to get out of their beds independently,

let alone out of the house,

and 46 people died who didn't have to!

We don't yet know
how to be fully disaster-proof,

of course,

but we can do a hell of a lot
better than we do today.

And one of the key ways
is by investing in mitigation.

Projects like raising
the electrical equipment

in high-rise buildings or hospitals

from the basement to upper floors,

or by clearing brush from around houses,
or installing flame-resistant roofs,

or even by increasing the drainage
adjacent to roads

are not sexy.

It's not sexy at all.

It's not nearly as sexy as the dramatic
rescues we see on the news,

but these projects save lives

and huge amounts of money.

Sure,

a project in Reedsburg, Wisconsin,

to raise telecommunications equipment
just four feet higher

sounds super boring!

But that 235-thousand-dollar project

is going to save $ 2.2 million

by avoiding losses from flood!

These are venture-capital-level returns.

A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis

by the National Institute
of Building Sciences

found that for every dollar
we invest in mitigation,

we save at least six

in disaster response and recovery costs.

On some projects, the return is 32 to 1.

The good news is that some communities
are putting data to work to save lives.

We think of Portland
as a lush, verdant metropolis.

It's temperate and green,

but that beautiful tree canopy
is not equally distributed.

Neighborhoods in Northeast Portland

have less than half the tree cover
of other parts of the city,

and that lack of trees dramatically
increases surface and air temperatures.

On summer days,

Northeast Portland can be
more than 20 degrees hotter

than the rest of the city.

Even in this theater,

we can imagine the difference
of a lovely 75 and a sweltering 95.

And those tree-poor neighborhoods
are also dollar poor,

and their residents have elevated
asthma and heart disease rates.

And the evidence is clear

that heart disease and asthma and poverty

all increase a person's risk
of dying in a heatwave.

So on extremely hot days,

which are now way more common
thanks to climate change,

residents of Northeast Portland
are going to die disproportionately.

But Portland is taking action.

City agencies, together
with community members,

are planting and nurturing trees.

Not only are they beautiful;

they reduce urban heat
and absorb air pollution

and reduce the risk
of dying from a heatwave.

It is so simple.

Nothing about this is rocket science.

Here's the bottom line:

calling wildfires, heatwaves, hurricanes
and flood natural disasters

obfuscates our human responsibility.

It lets us off the hook
for the death and destruction.

It might feel awkward for a while,
but let's call them human disasters.

And let's also stop behaving as if we're
powerless against their consequences.

What if we treated airplane crashes
the way we treat human disasters?

What if, when a place crashed,
the FAA said, "What do you want from us?

We are flying tubes of metal
filled with people through the air!

We're defying nature, and it's hard ..."?

(Laughter)

What if they took the incredibly rich data

from the black boxes
and the voice recorders,

and they just put it on the shelf,
and planes just fell out of the sky?

We would be enraged.

But this is exactly how we treat
hurricanes, floods,

wildfires and heatwaves.

Whole communities are wiped out,

leaving their residents emotionally
and financially devastated

and others dead,

and our leaders literally shrug.

They say,

"Mother Nature."

"Acts of God."

"We did the best we could."

No.

No, you didn't.

We know how to stop the suffering.

We have the data!

We just need to use it

to create policy
that prioritizes mitigation,

to stop building houses
in areas we know are dangerous

and to take protective action
against climate change now -

(Audience member) Yes!

Before it's too late.

(Applause)

We have the power to save lives,

and we must use it!

Thank you.

(Applause) (Cheers)