Wanting to ‘return to normal’ after a disaster is understandable, but often problematic

Media coverage of the recent fires in Los Angeles showed the heartbreaking damage in Pacific Palisades and elsewhere across Los Angeles County. People lost not only their houses but also the thriving communities of which they had been part.

What was quickly apparent was the desire to rebuild. People often want their lives to bounce back from every crisis or disaster and to recreate what they have lost.

And this points to a broader issue that emerges after many natural disasters. People want to rebuild and return to normal when, in the face of an increasingly volatile climate, the best option may be to adapt and change.

There is a tension between a common understanding of personal resilience and the resilience of complex adaptive systems such as cities. People have a psychological and social need for stability and permanence, but all complex systems are resilient only because they adapt when forced to.

In New Zealand, the same tension emerged in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle. Ahead of the second anniversary of the devastating cyclone – and as Northland is battered, yet again, by severe weather and flooding – New Zealanders need to ask how we can balance our personal resilience and need for stability while also acknowledging the need for a managed retreat.

The long history of fires in Los Angeles

In his essay The Case for Letting Malibu Burn, writer Mike Davis outlines how fire is an inescapable part of Los Angeles history and how after each fire the city has always been rebuilt.

Davis’ work focuses on Los Angeles but raises important questions about the future of all communities facing increasing risks from climate change.

The repeated rebuilds in Los Angeles have created an expectation that the city will be rebuilt after every fire.

But the city also has unique physical features that make such fires inescapable: the combination of the Santa Ana winds blowing from the desert with chaparral vegetation growing in the steep and dry canyons.

Fire has always been a natural part of the cycle of regeneration in this landscape. What has changed is the encroachment of human dwellings at the foot of these hills and canyons, and into them. Between 1990 and 2020, nearly 45% of the homes built in California were placed in these high fire risk areas.

Climate change is also making both localised rain events and droughts in the Los Angeles environs more extreme, creating larger and then drier fuel loads.

From a systems perspective, a managed retreat from the areas of worst fire risk makes sense. The resilience of cities requires them to be adaptive.

Yet adaptation in Los Angeles is largely not happening. After previous fires, rebuilding has generally occurred within six years and with minimal to no change in building design or placement. People have found comfort in the idea of “bouncing back” like a rubber ball.

Pricing in the risk

There is one group within this complex system which is actually adapting in the face of increasing climate change – in Los Angeles and elsewhere, including in New Zealand.

Home insurers have drastically raised premiums in Los Angeles, or removed cover entirely from many homeowners, to cover ever-growing losses. The insurance bill for these recent fires is predicted to be US$30 billion and the frequency and cost of such climate disasters is increasing.

Together, the 2023 Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle cost insurers more than NZ$3.5 billion. The cost of insurance in New Zealand rose by 14% in 2024, significantly outpacing general consumer price inflation.

In system terms, increased insurance premiums represent some of the adaptive capacity of a community that insists on rebuilding in the face of increasing risks.

In economic terms, you can also think of insurance premiums as a market signal which is pricing the ever-increasing risk of disaster into the cost of living in such fire or flood zones.

Accepting risk or accepting change in NZ

The approaching second anniversary of Cyclone Gabrielle and the ongoing debate over managed retreat demonstrates the same tension in Aotearoa New Zealand between increasing climate risks and our very human need to rebuild and restore what we have lost.

City and regional councils are facing questions about whether to build (or rebuild) in high-risk areas.

But with two thirds of our population living in flood risk areas and both flood risks and insurance costs increasing, how many times can New Zealand rebuild in these risky areas?

In the end, we need to remember that a crucial, and sometimes overlooked, element of psychological resilience is acceptance of change.

In a world of accelerating climate change and related disasters this is increasingly the more realistic response.