Planning for Disaster Recovery

Abstract Rules can promote decisive, timely action, but a rules-based system is only as good as the data that drive it. Because no rule is perfect, there should be some discretion to deal with situations in which the rules fail. The challenge is to allow discretion without allowing people to game the system. The data need to be resistant to manipulation and strike the right balance between cost, speed, and reliability. Any data that could trigger action will depend on investments before a disaster in design of the data-collection system, including an audit function, and in the human and technological capacity to collect data in a timely manner. Three types of data could be used to trigger action: ground data on the damage to or losses of people and buildings, area average index data on damage and losses, or parametric indexes.