Private sector can shoulder more responsibility for disaster readiness
This post was originally published on March 15, 2018 in The Hill. I just returned from Texas, where I was assessing the relief progress of our partners six months after Hurricane Harvey made landfall. Tens of billions of dollars have been invested into rebuilding coastal towns and cities that endured the worst damage of the storm and armies of volunteers are still working to get these communities back on their feet. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been impacted, and that the influx of taxpayer money is a far cry from what is actual needed. But there is another surprising factor that’s made the recovery process unacceptably slow and prevented families from returning to their homes. There simply are not enough skilled tradespeople like plumbers, electricians and roofers— to rebuild homes at the necessary clip. The United States is currently in the midst of a drastic skilled labor shortage and it’s also causing major problems for communities that are recovering from disasters. In a 2017 report, the Associated General Contractors of America
