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January 28, 2008

Safe at Home Interviews Stephen Flynn

Joan Harting Barham

Joan Harting Barham

Meet our Stephen Flynn, our first profile in resilience.

Quite frankly, we couldn't have begun with anyone else because Stephen is our inspiration for this whole project. His latest book The Edge of Disaster has an ominous title but in fact - while it demonstrates that we are living on borrowed time - it also shows what is possible if we as individuals - and as a society - decide to construct a more resilient society. His premise is that with the wounds of national disasters still relatively fresh in our minds, we need to act to ensure that our political leaders act to prevent future disasters.

Furthermore, as Stephen reiterates, it is simply too important a matter to leave to our political leaders; we need ordinary citizens to tackle the perils that lie before us. Stephen Flynn convinces us that all we need to do is to tap into our most important trait: our sense of optimism about the future and our belief that we can transform it for the better - for ourselves, for our children and for our nation.

In this brief profile, Stephen Flynn provides us with the road map to resiliency whether it is to survive a terrorist attack like 9/11 or a natural catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina.

We'd love to hear from you! At the end of this interview is information on how to get in touch with us regarding your thoughts about Safe at Home.

Joan Harting Barham: The titles of your two books, America The Vulnerable and The Edge of Disaster, say it all, really. Even all these years after 9/11, you believe the U.S. is unprepared for the next terrorist attack. How come? What's our government been doing all this time?

STEPHEN FLYNN: I would argue that to a large extent we've lost track of America's roots. America's earliest settlers and those frontier generations who marched across to the West had to exercise something that really became a national trait: resilience. Through epic struggles, like the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the two World Wars and economic downturns, generations of folks have embraced adversity and drawn strength from it and then bequeathed to the next generation a sense of confidence and optimism.

Since 9/11, rather than calling upon the American tradition of grit and volunteerism and commitment to a better future, Washington has focused on using the tools of the national security establishment to wage a war on terrorism beyond our shores. Meanwhile Americans have been told to just get on with their lives, that they will be taken care of. So our capacity to deal with these kinds of events isn't what it should be; we should be finding ways to mobilize at the individual level.

JHB: And do you sincerely believe that another terrorist attack is inevitable in the United States?

SF: It most certainly is, I'm afraid, inevitable.

Terrorism is fundamentally about generating fear. Fear is the incentive for our adversaries to engage in acts of terror on U.S. soil; they believe terrorism is a way to confront U.S. power and cause us to overreact. Overreact by imposing very costly and possibly draconian remedies to the attack scenario. Overreact by potentially becoming more insular, pushing aside some of our civil liberties.

So, while we can't prevent every act of terror against a society as big and open as ours, we can control our reaction to these events. And our reaction is directly related to how well prepared we are to deal with disasters of all sorts and how capable we are as communities of coming together to respond. And that's what I'm calling resilience.

For six years, Americans have been told that we face an epochal terrorist threat and yet we've not been given much of anything to do, therefore almost guaranteeing that we'll feel a sense of powerlessness when we have a next 9/11-scale attack. But if we build our resilience - and we should do it around probable and consequential natural events - we can work our way through most anything that our terrorist adversaries would perpetrate.

JHB: In the Edge of Disaster you also address our lack of preparedness for natural disasters and widespread health crises. We can all agree that natural disasters are going to occur, but what are the odds, in your estimation, of a severe national health emergency?

SF: The one thing we can safely predict about the 21st Century is that we'll be confronted with periodic calamities, natural and man-made. The probability of a pandemic, by most experts' analysis, is growing. That's because more of us are coming into contact with each other over the whole broad expanse of the planet. Germs and viruses and so forth that used to take a while to mutate to a point where they could pose a problem have now got a bigger petri dish.

JHB: You're talking about modern travel?

SF: It's primarily about the nature of travel, which allows things to spread very quickly, and also where we live. The fact that we're so concentrated, the bulk of our populations are living in urbanized areas. Especially in the developing world - places like Karachi, Pakistan, and Mexico City - where there simply isn't the public health infrastructure or the physical infrastructure to absorb and deal with that massive humanity in a sanitary way.

JHB: If a person lives in Omaha or some tiny town in Montana, should she/he be less concerned about disaster preparedness?

SF: There's a number that's really quite astonishing: A University of South Carolina study commissioned the year after Katrina identified that 91% of Americans - 9 out of 10 of us - live in a place at a moderate or high risk of a major natural disaster.

Beyond that, half the population in United States lives within 50 miles of the coast. If you're on the West Coast, that means you're susceptible to earthquakes. On the East Coast and Gulf Coast, of course, we're talking about vulnerabilities to hurricanes and storms.

Now when it comes to terrorism, from what we understand about the radical Jihadist threat, it is more likely to be concentrated in urban areas like New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago and so forth. But because all of us rely on transportation or energy or financial systems that are national and international, a catastrophic attack in a major urban area will cause ripple effects everywhere.

JHB: In your book The Edge of Disaster, you draw a picture of an almost secretive government with a paternalistic attitude towards its citizens. Why shouldn't we rely on our government to protect us?

SF: It's almost curious that we've put so much emphasis on our professional soldiers, professional intelligence officials and professional law enforcement people to protect us when the most serious terrorist attack that's been prevented on U.S. soil was United 93. That flight was the one, of course, that got off the ground late from New Jersey and was almost certainly destined for the capital. So, the seat of our government, which was set up to provide for our common defense, turned out on September 11th to be defended by heroic and alerted everyday citizens.

Not only was the information that terrorists were considering using planes as missiles not well shared within the federal government, but it wasn't shared at all with the rest of us. Only because the United 93 hijackers allowed passengers to use their cell phones did they find out something the passengers of the first three planes didn't know: that the terrorists were on a suicide mission. And, armed with that knowledge, those everyday citizens did something that we should all be extraordinarily grateful for - but also something that speaks to the core reality that it'll be civilians who are increasingly on the front lines.

This is true with natural disasters, as well. While professional responders will come in afterwards, the most critical time is the first few moments after any disaster happens. And then, it's always about neighbors helping neighbors or a stranger helping a stranger. Our ability to manage in those initial critical moments as everyday civilians is going to be key to our being able to manage natural events or even, as United 93 showed, to protect our country.

JHB: Except for the annoyance of taking off our shoes at airports, most of us have very little interface with our country's anti-terrorism efforts. How can any one of us become more involved, more pro-active?

SF: At a basic level, it's about being aware in our environments, being vigilant about things that are out of the ordinary and warrant some level of concern. We have as a model a place like Israel where it is just inconceivable that there would be a package left, a suitcase or a bag or anything, on a bus, in a station or in a restaurant, without somebody immediately stepping in. Our government views most citizens as potential, helpless victims instead of saying that it's going to take our collective eyes and ears, our collective vigilance to really make the difference.

JHB: What would each of us have to sacrifice - in terms of time and tax dollars - to achieve an acceptable level of preparedness for terrorist attack, health emergencies or natural disasters?

SF: I'd really like Americans to think in terms of making investments.

We know we're going to find ourselves in situations where, despite our own personal levels of resiliency, we're overwhelmed. We're going to want to turn to professionals who can come to our assistance in our time of need. The reality is, after about two decades of taxpayer rebellion, our public health services are not where they need to be to deal with any major disease outbreak - certainly a flu pandemic would completely overwhelm them. In many cases, our fire departments have been shuttering firehouses. And our police forces are smaller today than they were on September 11th in virtually every urban area in this country - including New York.

We need to talk about the civic virtue of essentially taking care of ourselves, becoming more self-reliant. That is, when things go wrong, there aren't going to be enough professionals to go round and they need to help the people most in danger first. The rest of us should be self-sufficient enough that we can ride out three days, so we're not part of the problem.

Getting something like CERT or Citizen Emergency Response Training offered by the Red Cross allows you to serve as a potential leader in your neighborhood or on your block to help folks through calamities.

JHB: Do you believe there's any way to re-capture that feeling of national unity and willingness to contribute that pervaded right after 9/11?

SF: I do think so. I find that people really want to help. They just haven't been asked. I think Americans are willing to do it in part because our uniformed men and women are continuing to make an extraordinary sacrifice on our behalf.

JHB: What thing above all others could the next President do to put our country on the path to preparedness?

SF: It's almost trite to say, but what a President can do, using the bully pulpit of the office, is remind us of our better angels. The President can relate the narrative of resilience being part of our national character and can point us in the direction of recapturing that legacy. But to achieve resilience, what's really required is a much more bottom up effort.

JHB: Edge of Disaster details a great number of steps that individuals can take - today or tomorrow - to assure the safety of their families. Could you talk about some of the most important ones?

SF: It starts by getting reliable information. There's no shortage of websites to get basic information - whether it's the Red Cross or ready.gov or familysecuritymatters.org - about what you'll need when you lose the modern conveniences or your lives are disrupted. How could you survive for three days if, for instance, the power went out? And the good news is that virtually all of it is simple to do and doesn't cost very much. And what it gives you, of course, is huge dividends in peace of mind.

Beyond the home and individual, it's essential to ask questions. Asking supervisors at work, school principals, selectmen or community leaders, ward leaders or councilmen: "What's the plan if something goes wrong?" Our leaders don't spend a lot of time on things they think people don't care about. So people merely beginning to ask the questions is very, very important for motivating them to find the answers.

JHB: Not to put you on the spot, but do you, your wife and daughter have a family emergency plan?

SF: We do. We have a 72-hour kit for ourselves and also for my in-laws who live not too far away. And we have a plan for how to communicate if we can't reach each other directly. Since we live in a relatively rural area, we have a more shelter-in-place approach to dealing with a calamity: a generator and back-up water and other supplies.

The challenge often becomes greater in urban areas. If you're living in a tiny apartment, there's not a whole lot of room for a lot of things, but basics - like having the N95 mask in case of a pandemic - will certainly help.

JHB: Finally, what was the impetus for you to make security and resilience your life's work? Was it 9/11?

SF: I was focusing on the issues of terrorism and catastrophic risk long before 9/11. And it was a very lonely business back then.

But as a young man, on my second Coast Guard assignment, I commanded a patrol boat and did hard-core search-and-rescue off the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I found that tackling the adversities Mother Nature presented and the chance to help those in need were very rewarding. I discovered that challenges and potential threats, when we confront them well, give us a sense of empowerment and a sense of a life well lived.

That's why I've never looked at dealing with adversity and clearly confronting potential threats as paranoia or pessimism, but really almost as opportunities. Opportunities that remind us about why we come together as communities, why we want to take full advantage of the time we have on this planet and make sure it's well invested.

Stephen Flynn, the Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, is an expert on homeland security, trade and transportation issues. He spent 20 years as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, served in the White House Military Office during the George H.W. Bush administration, and was director for global issues in the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration. His most recent book is entitled The Edge of Disaster: Building a Resilient Nation.

*We welcome feedback about the Safe at Home initiative. If you would like more information about Deborah Burlingame, or if you have any other comments regarding Safe at Home, please e-mail us at EditorialDirector@familysecuritymatters.org. For further information about Safe at Home, click here. Thank you!

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Safe at Home Editor Joan Harting Barham is a writer and editor who has spent more than two decades communicating to and with women. In New York City, she served as a Senior Editor at Glamour, Harper's Bazaar and Elle magazines and in Toronto, where she currently lives with her husband, as Editor-in-Chief of Fashion magazine. Joan has interviewed such luminaries as First Lady Nancy Reagan, business titan Leonard Lauder, and Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins.

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Note - The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of The Family Security Foundation, Inc.

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