Out of the Whirlwind: Supply and Demand after Hurricane Maria

The book is a narrative approach to network science and especially the role of concentration risk in networks of all kinds. A focus on the life of one Puerto Rican family (a composite sketch of the dozens of interviews of those who experienced Hurricane Maria) will personalize and contextualize underlying and predictable principles of network behavior. The more concentrated a network, the more likely it is productive and efficient. But the same concentration producing these positive outcomes increases the risk of catastrophic network failure.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Part I: Perhaps an Accident Part II: Alvarado, Sea Captain Part III: Jaime and Pepita, Grocers Part IV: Esteban and Manuel, Distributors Part V: The General, Juniper, and Jesse: Outsiders Part VI: Acaso una Intención (Perhaps an Intention) The Moral of Our Story Afterword Research Bibliography Che si può fare?

About the Author :
Philip J. Palin has served as the principal investigator for supply chain resilience with the Institute for Public Research at CNA Corporation and staff consultant on supply chain resilience with the Program on Risk, Resilience and Extreme Events at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. During most of the second half of 2017 he supported FEMA’s response to hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. During the first half of 2018 he conducted a series of interviews with several dozen persons who were involved in supply chain operations during the three hurricanes. He is also the author of several collections of poetry.

Review :
The text should prompt readers within the emergency management profession to carefully examine basic economic conditions of supply, demand and, and economic signaling to be aware of the fallacy that comes with mistaking a lack of supply versus critical supply chain blockers. The text should serve as an important lesson learned for future federally funded relief operations with particular caution for future federally funded declarations in becoming subject to a slight variation of Parksinson’s law; work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. In lieu of work and time, substitute commodities and perceived demand. While the focus of Palin’s text is self-declared as for supply chain students or practitioners, the text offers something educational for just about any reader. In his new book, Out of the Whirlwind; Supply and Demand After Hurricane Maria, Philip J. Palin uses a unique narrative approach to examine the post-Maria supply chain. He develops fictional characters amalgamated from interviews and real-world experiences to describe varying supply chain concepts and effects during the post-Maria recovery. The result is an engaging, novel-like narrative that highlights the importance of post-disaster supply-chain resilience. . . . These narratives describe, in arresting detail, supply-chain challenges for post-disaster recovery. From the end-point grocer to the distributor, the transporter to the federal coordinator, Palin touches on each level of a supply chain. Each story illustrates vividly not only what happened during the Maria recovery but what can be expected in other similar disasters. . . Emergency management practitioners and academics should take a keen interest in these narratives as illustrations of successes, challenges, and future problems within a post-disaster supply chain. The narrative approach is compelling and needed as most of the supply chain research focuses on quantitative analysis. Palin offers a unique approach to exploring issues pertaining to supply chain resilience. It builds off a recent example that we are still learning from--and that we will continue to learn from. The author’s background provides for a unique perspective that hasnot been attempted by a traditional quantitative-minded supply chain management professional or emergency management practitioner. As disaster relief is an interdisciplinary field, it requires contributions from professionals with the experiences such as those of Philip Palin.