Natalie Daniels
Assistant Director of Housing, Greater London Authority
Miso has become a fundamental part of my creative life since returning from Japan six months ago, it enters my family food daily, and my 4-year-old now struggles to eat rice without shoyu (soy sauce). I will also likely not declare to the fabulous professional colleagues and friends that I made in Japan that as a Sheffielder, my now deep belief that Henderson’s Relish should be a fundamental component in a comforting miso soup.
The other comfort, and true joy, that remains with me is the quiet questioning and ongoing set of curiosities that have sat with me since leaving Japan.
Upon seeing – only glimpses – of the Japanese infrastructure for disaster preparedness, it raises questions about whether there is a more advanced infrastructure for this anywhere in the world. I have previously worked in several countries that have a high level of maturity, and advanced risk understanding of what needs to be in place to mitigate natural hazards. Yet, many of those, potentially because of the multiple impacts of these disasters, have not had the resources to invest in a thorough programme of education, regulation, and enforcement that can lead to this preparedness. One of my colleagues on the trip had trained and worked as a primary school teacher before working in local government, and she found herself asking if young people in British educational institutions were taught disaster awareness from an early age if this could build social cohesion and higher levels of risk awareness / executive function, that would have long – term behavioural and societal benefits. This curiosity creeps across me when I am considering how we take forward urban resilience strategies in times of highly complex threats.
There was one story from our time in Fukushima that reminded me that preparedness is the making of heroes. Few of us can respond to a crisis indefatigable, and immaculately, unprepared. I will never forget the story of the teacher, working in a school that was within 150 metres of the water’s edge where the tsunami struck in 2013. On the sounding of the alarm – the national infrastructure means there are several means that citizens will be alerted to an impending hazard – the teacher took an unchartered route, but one that she believed would be better given the moment, and in doing so saved multiple classes of children. Many of us struggle to get our children to agree to go to the park and take a clear rapid path. We were told this story at a memorial, by local government officials, while we overlooked the land that 11 years ago had been devastated by a compound disaster. I don’t mind saying I cried. I kept thinking of when I visited a post–Katrina New Orleans, when the sense of injustice was still prevalent amongst certain communities, and it was public and palpable. Adorning lampposts, and garages, were posters saying, ‘don’t call me resilient’. Resilience is a requirement instead of preparation and infrastructure, and for communities who had lost their livelihoods the resilience they showed might have been part of their ongoing injustice. This teacher had been prepared, and resilience was her duty and her calling.
Memorialising this event was a fundamental part of this disaster response. I attended The Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum with an academic mindset; I would read the captions and learn things. Yet, from a young age, when I visited art galleries, I would studiously avoid the captions and allow myself to be struck (or not) by the art. My academic approach was going fine, I was collecting facts so I could collect a picture later. Then I saw a crushed post-box and my fact memory collapsed. What happened to those letters? What memories are lost? What letters will never be written again? Who was standing at that post-box? I swirled around that post-box the moment the disaster struck, then found myself with the tour group standing outside next to a crumpled fire truck. I stayed struck by the memories of others, deposited with me forever. I am no curator; I just hope all the visitors to the museum find their artefact of connection.
There would never be a perfect way to memorialise, but across our conversations, I did wonder about the integration of those who had not returned to Fukushima. They had built the vernacular, the place, the soul, and the socio-economics of the new Fukushima means they may not return, and I am curious about how their loss should be remembered. It was a privilege to have conversations with local government officials who shared some insights into the immediate disaster response. What struck me is although I had worked in disaster response internationally after the Fukushima disaster, I had never heard stories of this response before. Moreover, there were lessons to be learnt, but these had to untangle from the narrative. I would be curious about how we bring lessons from Japan to the wider international development sphere, which by its admission is slow to learn and adapt and therefore could only benefit from injections of reflective wisdom. It also raises the question of whether Japan is learning from others in this field.
The museum, the memorials, and the tech hubs appeared to show an unparalleled investment in the recovery phase post-disaster. The investment was possible because of a 30-year tax that was levied nationally. It raises questions about if and how the UK could have infrastructure investments that prioritise long–term investments, as our current investment could be characterised as annualised, occasionally multi-phased, and always temperamental. Yet, the counterpoint question is whether recovery should be at any cost, given all the strains on any nation’s balance sheet. My economist colleague who was part of the tour would highlight that in the UK the Treasury Green Book Business Case approach we have ways to find a ‘balanced’ investment level, but is that simply curbing an ambition that is a required treatment after whatever national disaster may hit? Whatever the method or investment in recovery, how should we integrate communities – in their full diversity – into this process? How do you integrate the particularities of place, including the eccentricities that people may seek to ‘tidy up’ as part of a recovery process?
My day job is to strive to help Londoners, and I am incredibly proud of the diversity of the population that I am committed to serving. I am yet to fully fathom if and how one would transfer some of the innovations/investment lessons from Fukushima – or indeed Japan’s national approach to disaster prevention – to cities with the diversity of London. I was diversity-hunting in Tokyo during the visit, and my direct method was to find my queer community. Having strengthened myself – I do not always have the dance moves to fully groove in queer spaces – with some fabulous Japanese whisky cocktails, I went through the portal…..Of course, diversity exists in all our cities, but truly connecting to it at any time can require commitment, and this is potentially even more the case in a post-disaster moment. So diversity needs to be in the recovery plan before the disaster strikes. Would disaster preparedness in schools help provide social bonding and bridging for the next generation?
Landscapes and food as catalysts for social bridging and bonding were utilised in this response, which felt inherently wise. I am not sure I have been converted to condensed milk with strawberries, but the principle that places are made of strawberries and gardens will stay with me.
As I continue to work with vulnerable communities in London, this trip reminded me that there are stories of joy that can emerge with resilience. It is understandable that I just stuck on the graft the fight, the rights, but I need to remember the diversity of our cities is their joy, and that this can be integrated into any process of recovery. When I consider rough sleeping action plans, I will be holding postcards in my mind of strawberries with condensed milk, as well as crushed post boxes. Thank you, Fukushima.
