Abstract
The City of Austin, Texas is recognized nationally and internationally as a sustainability and climate change leader through its many sustainable climate development programs and policies. However, in 2021, Winter Storm Uri challenged the city’s resilience in the face of arguably the worst winter storm event in its recorded history. Travis County (Austin’s home county) had the second highest loss of life, second only to the Houston area. Critical community services failed for a variety of reasons ranging from rolling mandatory blackouts enforced by the state energy grid regulator, burst potable water pipes that sapped water pressure and the ability to keep potable water sanitary as well as impassable roads due to ice and snow accumulation which impeded essential services such as fire/ems and police response. In the aftermath of this event, the City of Austin engaged in an in-depth post event analysis across all departments and with the impacted community. One outcome of that critical self reflection was a council resolution to create resilience hubs throughout the city to better cope with climate change emergencies whether heat wave, flood, cold wave or other extreme phenomena. In this paper, I review what went wrong in Winter storm Uri in key city services and sectors and argue that hubs alone would have done little even during winter storm Uri to save lives and prevent injury. I offer a framework for adaptation resilience based on a nested multilevel mutually reinforcing model of self reliance that begins with families, neighbors, districts and sectors.
Presenters
Robert PatersonAssociate Professor, School of Architecture, The University of Texas, Texas, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Resilience Hubs, Sustainable Climate Development, Cascading Hazard Events
