我們必須做好災難應急計劃

After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, many New York companies, fearing another air assault, put their back-up generators in the basement — which is how they came to be flooded when Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012.

在2001年9/11恐怖襲擊事件發生之後，紐約的許多公司由於擔心遭遇另一場空中襲擊，把它們的備用發電機放到了地下室——這就是2012年颶風“桑迪”來襲時這些發電機被淹的原因。

Where should they have put their generators? “In the middle of the building,” says Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation. That is where Ikea’s Red Hook, Brooklyn store had its generator. The store was also built on stilts, with its car park below. “They were hit very hard,” Ms Rodin says. But unlike other businesses, Ikea was up and running in a few days. “The benefit for them was that they not only recovered quickly but they became a community centre for recovery.”

它們本應把發電機放在哪裏？洛克菲勒基金會(Rockefeller Foundation)的總裁朱迪思•羅丁(Judith Rodin)表示：“放在建築物的中間。”設在布魯克林區Red Hook的宜家(Ikea)門店當時就是這麼做的。該門店還是架空的，下面是它的停車場。羅丁表示：“它們當時受到的破壞非常嚴重。”但是與其他企業不同，宜家在幾天時間裏就恢復了正常營業。“這些發電機的好處在於，它們不僅迅速重新啓動，而且還成爲了恢復營業的活動中心”。

The New York generator issue demonstrates a problem with disaster planning. Too many companies and cities agonise over how they should have confronted their last disaster.

紐約發電機問題展示出災難應對規劃的問題。太多的公司和城市對它們理應如何應對上次災難感到苦悶不已。

“But if you look around the world, almost weekly there’s something. A cyber attack, a terrorist attack, a violent storm, a hurricane or an earthquake, a tsunami,” Ms Rodin says. Companies and cities need to be “prepared for anything, not just the last thing”.

羅丁表示：“但如果你環顧世界，幾乎每週都會發生一些狀況。一場網絡攻擊、一場恐怖襲擊、一場暴風雪、一場颶風或地震，以及一場海嘯。”公司和城市有必要“準備好應對一切，而不僅僅是它們上次遭遇的災難”。

Resilience, the ability to plan for and spring back from setbacks, is a growing preoccupation of corporate and city leaders. The most forward-thinking are working together and looking, for ex­ample, at how transport and electricity systems would withstand a natural disaster, cyber or terrorist attack.

應變力是指制定災難應對計劃並從中恢復的能力，它日益成爲企業和城市領導人的當務之急。例如，最具前瞻性的想法是雙方緊密協作，研究交通和電力系統將如何抵禦一場自然災害、網絡攻擊或恐怖襲擊活動。

Headquartered in New York, the 102-year old Rockefeller Foundation, which claims to be America’s first global foundation, has made resilience a central theme with its 100 Resilient Cities project. This aims to help urban centres cope not only with disasters, but with day-to-day problems, such as violence or food and water shortages. Ms Rodin, the foundation’s head for 10 years, has written a book, The Resilience Dividend , on how companies and cities can deal with the threats that she calls “regrettably, the new normal”. After Sandy, Andrew Cuomo, New York’s governor, asked her to co-chair a commission to help prepare the city for future shocks.

總部位於紐約的洛克菲勒基金會擁有102年曆史，號稱是美國第一家全球基金會。該基金會推出了評選“100座最具彈性城市”(100 Resilient Cities)的項目，並讓應變力成爲該項目的主題。該項目的主旨是幫助城市中心不僅能應對災難，而且還能應對日常問題，比如暴力活動或者食品和水短缺問題。十年來一直擔任洛克菲勒基金會總裁的羅丁撰寫了一本名爲《應變力的紅利》(The Resilience Dividend)的書，講述公司和城市如何應對被其稱爲“令人遺憾的新常態”的威脅。在颶風“桑迪”過後，紐約州州長安德魯•庫默(Andrew Cuomo)邀請羅丁擔任一家委員會的聯合主席，來幫助紐約市應對未來的災難。

A tragic example of what can happen when cities have not planned for the worst was Oslo in 2011, when Anders Behring Breivik bombed a government building in the city and then went on a killing spree on the island of Utøya. The Norwegian authorities were horribly un­prepared. “The Delta Force which was sent out from Oslo to the island couldn’t find it in their GPS,” says Ms Rodin. There had been no discussions about how the various police forces should co-operate.

彰顯城市沒有災難應對規劃後果的一個悲劇性例子是2011年的奧斯陸，當時安德斯•貝林•佈雷維克(Anders Behring Breivik)在該市的一棟政府辦公樓裏引爆了炸彈，隨後在於特島(Utøya)對着人羣瘋狂射擊。挪威當局明顯措手不及。羅丁表示：“從奧斯陸派往於特島的‘三角洲’特種部隊在他們的GPS中都找不到這個小島。”當時也沒有人討論不同警察部門之間應該如何合作。

The city that set a better example was Boston, says Ms Rodin. Its government and transport authorities, hospitals and voluntary organisations had discussed and practised how to deal with a disaster, wherever it came from. When the Boston Marathon was attacked in 2013, everyone knew what role to play. “They had already decided the governor was going to be the major communicator. They had already decided that, no matter what, the FBI was going to lead the police response. They knew which hospitals would be called upon to do what if people were hurt.

羅丁表示，樹立了較好榜樣的城市是波士頓。波士頓市政府和交通管理部門、醫院以及志願者組織討論並實踐瞭如何應對災難，無論災難來自何處。當2013年波士頓馬拉松比賽遭受恐怖襲擊時，所有人都知道各司其責。“他們已經決定，市長將會主要負責溝通。他們已經決定，無論出現什麼情況，美國聯邦調查局(FBI)將會領導警方採取對策。他們知道，如果有人受傷，可以送到哪家醫院。”

“And — this is important — they used every event in which there were large crowds to practise. So if a sports team won a national title or [during] a big Independence Day parade they rehearsed all of this,” she adds.

她補充稱：“而且——這非常重要——他們利用每一個有人羣聚集的活動進行演練。因此，如果有體育隊贏得全國比賽的冠軍，或者在獨立日大型遊行活動期間，他們全都進行了行動預演。”

Defining roles in advance of a disaster is one aspect of resilience. Another is building redundancy into transport and supply systems. Sandy demonstrated how vulnerable New York’s infrastructure was. “We don’t have a robust and diversified transit system and so when the subways flooded that was a problem. We have a very brittle — we learnt — electric grid, and so the whole lower half of Manhattan got taken out.”

在災難來臨前定義角色是應變力的一個方面。另一個是增加交通和供應系統的冗餘能力。颶風“桑迪”展現出紐約的基礎設施是多麼的脆弱。“我們沒有健全和多樣化的交通系統，因此當地鐵被淹沒的時候，這就成了一個問題。我們的電力網絡非常脆弱——我們早就知道——因此整個曼哈頓下城區停電了。”

Back-up is important for companies too, as became clear in the case of Lululemon Athletica, the Canadian leisure fashion group whose yoga pants proved to be more see-through than their wearers had bargained for. Lululemon found it hard to react, Ms Rodin says, because it had not prepared for disruptions in delivery of its materials. It had only one supplier for this particular fabric, which prolonged the time it took to deal with its embarrassment. Companies need alternatives when things go awry.

對公司來說，應急準備也非常重要，加拿大休閒時尚集團Lululemon Athletica遇到的問題體現了這一點——事實證明，該公司生產的瑜伽褲的透明度超出了穿衣者的初衷。羅丁表示，Lululemon發現很難對此作出反應，因爲它沒有對原料供應中斷做好準備。該公司的這種特殊布料只有一家供應商，這延誤了它處理這種尷尬事件的時間。當事情出錯時，公司需要有其他選擇。

For cities, demonstrating the resilience of their infrastructure can help attract corporate investment. When Deutsche Bank was looking for a site for its new Indian operations centre, it chose Pune. The city, Ms Rodin says, “had built a lot of redundant energy, they had invested in communications technology, new transit and the like”.

對城市來說，展示它們基礎設施的適應能力，可能有助於吸引企業投資。當德意志銀行(Deutsche Bank)爲其新的印度運營中心選址時，它選中了浦那。羅丁表示，該市“建造了大量的冗餘能源，他們對通訊技術、新的交通設施以及諸如此類的東西進行了投資”。

Co-operation between companies and urban leaders is not enough, she says, if the city is badly divided. Disasters re­quire neighbours to help one another. Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans knew that its flood defences were vulnerable. It had thought about how to cope with the consequences. “New Or­leans had loads of plans,” she says. But the city’s decades-old social and economic divides meant that social breakdown came quickly.

她說，如果這座城市分歧嚴重的話，公司和城市領導人之間合作得不夠充分。災難需要鄰居彼此幫助。在卡特里娜颶風 (Hurricane Katrina)來臨之前，新奧爾良知道其防洪設施非常脆弱。它曾考慮過如何應對災難來臨後的影響。羅丁表示：“新奧爾良有一堆計劃。”但該市數十年的社會和經濟分歧意味着，災難發生後社會迅速出現崩潰。

Since Katrina, she says, the city and businesses have worked at healing the divide. The economy is more diverse. The schools have improved: “It’s a work in progress — it’s only 10 years — but they really have revitalised. And they have had bad hurricanes since then, but they are doing significantly better.”

她說，自卡特里娜颶風爆發以來，新奧爾良和企業致力於修復分歧。現在該市經濟更加多樣化。學校有所改善：“情況正在改善——現在纔過去了十年時間——但它們真的已經恢復了活力。自那以後，它們也遭遇了惡劣的颶風，但它們的表現好多了。”

Companies should not always wait for cities to act. If necessary, they should lead the process. When SABMiller, the brewer, discovered that the water bills at its bottling plant in Bogotá were rising alarmingly, it could have pulled out of the area, which would have devastated the local economy. Instead, the company proposed to the water utility that they investigate together.

企業不應總是等待城市採取行動。如果必要的話，它們應該帶頭行動。當啤酒釀造商SABMiller發現其位於波哥大的灌裝廠的水費大幅上升的時候，它本可以退出該地區，可那麼做就毀了當地經濟。相反，該公司向當地自來水公司提議一起展開調查。

“They found that the problem was way upstream. The cattle ranchers were clearing more and more land for grazing and they were destroying the eco­system, the sediment was going into the watershed and it was washing down,” Ms Rodin says. Working with the Nature Conservancy, the US non-profit organisation, SAB talked to the ranchers about how to graze more efficiently and helped to restore the watershed.

羅丁表示：“它們發現，問題出在上游。養牛牧場主人清理出越來越多的土地來放牧，他們在破壞生態系統，沉積物進入分水嶺，而且還在往下流。”SABMiller與美國非盈利組織大自然保護協會(Nature Conservancy)合作，還與牧場主人商量如何更有效地放牧，並幫助恢復分水嶺。”

“Their costs came down. The water utility passed that saving on to them. The ranchers became much more committed to the ecosystem. A complete win. The resilience dividend for all of them,” she says.

“它們的成本下降了。自來水公司相應降低了水價。牧場主人更加致力於保護生態系統，這是一個全贏的局面。所有人都得到了應變力紅利，”她說。