Individual and Community Resilience: An Analysis of End-user (Dis)trust Due to Water Infrastructure Service Failures

Abstract Submission: Trust in public service organizations (PSOs) significantly influences public perception and consequential behavior. When trust erodes, particularly during crises, individuals are more likely to disregard official guidance and instead focus on individual and community resilience, ranging from personal preparedness to litigation against PSOs in extreme cases. For example, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, trust in local and federal government declined due to perceived disregard and neglect, leading residents to take individual and community-level behaviors such as self-motivated evacuations or filing lawsuits against government agencies. This study explores the emergence of individual and community resilience during and after two water crises: Winter Storm Uri in Austin, Texas (2021) and the Flint Water Crisis in Flint, Michigan (2014). Through interviews with end-users in both cities, we aim to understand how (dis)trust towards PSOs affected individual and community resilience. Preliminary findings reveal that in Austin, distrust arose due to perceived incompetence and lack of responsiveness from PSOs, leading residents to rely on individual and community-based measures, such as stockpiling bottled water or relying on community social media channels for information rather than PSO resources. In Flint, distrust, exacerbated by the PSOs’ role in the crisis and their perceived inadequate response, led to more extreme measures, including community activism and litigation. Despite these differences, both cases highlight the critical role that perceived individual and community resilience plays in crisis response. The insights from this study can help PSOs improve their crisis communication and preparedness strategies to better engage with communities during future crises.

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