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Hurricanes and Other Higher Callings

These Things We Cannot Ignore

By James A. Thomson

James Thomson is president and chief executive officer of the RAND Corporation.

PHOTO: DIANE BALDWIN

Nearly 12 months after they were first broadcast live, the television images from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita continue to haunt America’s collective psyche. Desperate people clinging to rooftops and clamoring for help. Daring helicopter rescues. Flattened, flooded, deserted neighborhoods. Corpses floating down inundated city streets. Looting and martial law. Towns gone. Schools, hospitals, and businesses destroyed or “blue roofed.”

There’s no question that significant portions of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi are still in a shambles a year after these traumatic events. But where America stands with respect to the recovery effort is less certain. Many Americans have been tempted to turn away, to shake their heads, and to say that the region’s problems are so overwhelming, confused, chaotic, political, and so stymied and stuck that no solution seems possible. Some have questioned policies that allow flood victims “to choose to live where they know it’s going to flood.” Still other Americans, seeing residents returning to New Orleans or businesses being reconstructed in Mississippi, have decided that the region is starting to get a handle on its problems and should not receive further assistance.

None of these impressions is completely accurate, but all of them collectively have dampened financial and political support for the massive recovery effort that lies ahead. Perhaps at no other time in America’s history has there been such a confluence of issues — pertaining to health care, education, poverty, infrastructure, energy, and the environment — that will require long-term, multidisciplinary, interconnected policy solutions.

At RAND, we consider the torrent of problems that have befallen the Gulf region — both those that directly resulted from the hurricanes and those that came to light in their aftermath — to be an unmistakable calling for objective analysis and innovative policymaking. That’s why in late 2005 we partnered with seven universities in the region, three of which are historically black institutions, to create the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute (RGSPI) in Jackson, Miss., and have since allocated $2 million to the endeavor from funds donated to RAND or earned by RAND on contracts.

Why was it so important for RAND to set up a Gulf office, which was both risky and unprecedented? Why were we willing to commit such a large portion of RAND discretionary dollars? What does RAND want to get out of this? Here is my answer: We have a deep sense of mission to public service. The hurricanes presented us with a professional obligation — if not a moral obligation — to use our experience and expertise to help an entire region envision, develop, and implement comprehensive public policy strategies. We gain our greatest sense of accomplishment from tackling the toughest public policy problems and solving them on behalf of the public good.

Today, RGSPI is focusing on long-term rebuilding and disaster preparation. It is taking a systems approach to the Gulf area’s multiple challenges. Already, RGSPI has analyzed repopulation trends in New Orleans, evaluated options to rebuild affordable housing in hurricane- ravaged portions of Mississippi, studied hurricane-induced student displacement in Louisiana, and investigated school mental health programs in hurricane-affected areas of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

In all these efforts, we are supporting only those projects for which there are organizations committed to using the results. We are also committed to outreach efforts so that our work can benefit the communities in greatest need.

It’s clear that RAND is making a difference. But it is just as clear that in the post-Katrina, post-Rita world, we have an obligation to make a difference in the Gulf states. RAND’s long-standing dedication to research in the public interest and its ability to take interdisciplinary approaches to difficult problems make it one of the few research institutions in the world — if not the only institution — that could spearhead this enormous effort. We’re committed to doing our part.