Lessons in Disaster PDF Download

Author: Gordon M. Goldstein
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805079718
Category : National security
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
11th Subejct: National Security -- United States-- 20th century.

Author: Thomas A. Birkland
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589013599
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Even before the wreckage of a disaster is cleared, one question is foremost in the minds of the public: "What can be done to prevent this from happening again?" Today, news media and policymakers often invoke the "lessons of September 11" and the "lessons of Hurricane Katrina." Certainly, these unexpected events heightened awareness about problems that might have contributed to or worsened the disasters, particularly about gaps in preparation. Inquiries and investigations are made that claim that "lessons" were "learned" from a disaster, leading us to assume that we will be more ready the next time a similar threat looms, and that our government will put in place measures to protect us. In Lessons of Disaster, Thomas Birkland takes a critical look at this assumption. We know that disasters play a role in setting policy agendas—in getting policymakers to think about problems—but does our government always take the next step and enact new legislation or regulations? To determine when and how a catastrophic event serves as a catalyst for true policy change, the author examines four categories of disasters: aviation security, homeland security, earthquakes, and hurricanes. He explores lessons learned from each, focusing on three types of policy change: change in the larger social construction of the issues surrounding the disaster; instrumental change, in which laws and regulations are made; and political change, in which alliances are created and shifted. Birkland argues that the type of disaster affects the types of lessons learned from it, and that certain conditions are necessary to translate awareness into new policy, including media attention, salience for a large portion of the public, the existence of advocacy groups for the issue, and the preexistence of policy ideas that can be drawn upon. This timely study concludes with a discussion of the interplay of multiple disasters, focusing on the initial government response to Hurricane Katrina and the negative effect the September 11 catastrophe seems to have had on reaction to that tragedy.

Author: William Starbuck
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 140514260X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
The book offers important insight relevant to Corporate, Governmentand Global organizations management in general. The internationallyrecognised authors tackle vital issues in decision making, howorganizational risk is managed, how can technological andorganizational complexities interact, what are the impediments foreffective learning and how large, medium, and small organizationscan, and in fact must, increase their resilience. Managers,organizational consultants, expert professionals, and trainingspecialists; particularly those in high risk organizations, mayfind the issues covered in the book relevant to their daily workand a potential catalyst for thought and action. A timely analysis of the Columbia disaster and theorganizational lessons that can be learned from it. Includes contributions from those involved in the InvestigationBoard report into the incident. Tackles vital issues such as the role of time pressures andgoal conflict in decision making, and the impediments for effectivelearning. Examines how organizational risk is managed and howtechnological and organizational complexities interact. Assesses how large, medium, and small organizations can, and infact must, increase their resilience. Questions our eagerness to embrace new technologies, yetreluctance to accept the risks of innovation. Offers a step by step understanding of the complex factors thatled to disaster.

Author: Eugenie L. Birch
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812204484
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Disasters—natural ones, such as hurricanes, floods, or earthquakes, and unnatural ones such as terrorist attacks—are part of the American experience in the twenty-first century. The challenges of preparing for these events, withstanding their impact, and rebuilding communities afterward require strategic responses from different levels of government in partnership with the private sector and in accordance with the public will. Disasters have a disproportionate effect on urban places. Dense by definition, cities and their environs suffer great damage to their complex, interdependent social, environmental, and economic systems. Social and medical services collapse. Long-standing problems in educational access and quality become especially acute. Local economies cease to function. Cultural resources disappear. The plight of New Orleans and several smaller Gulf Coast cities exemplifies this phenomenon. This volume examines the rebuilding of cities and their environs after a disaster and focuses on four major issues: making cities less vulnerable to disaster, reestablishing economic viability, responding to the permanent needs of the displaced, and recreating a sense of place. Success in these areas requires that priorities be set cooperatively, and this goal poses significant challenges for rebuilding efforts in a democratic, market-based society. Who sets priorities and how? Can participatory decision-making be organized under conditions requiring focused, strategic choices? How do issues of race and class intersect with these priorities? Should the purpose of rebuilding be restoration or reformation? Contributors address these and other questions related to environmental conditions, economic imperatives, social welfare concerns, and issues of planning and design in light of the lessons to be drawn from Hurricane Katrina.

Author: Rutherford H. Platt
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610912632
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
In recent years, the number of presidential declarations of “major disasters” has skyrocketed. Such declarations make stricken areas eligible for federal emergency relief funds that greatly reduce their costs. But is federalizing the costs of disasters helping to lighten the overall burden of disasters or is it making matters worse? Does it remove incentives for individuals and local communities to take measures to protect themselves? Are people more likely to invest in property in hazardous locations in the belief that, if worse comes to worst, the federal government will bail them out? Disasters and Democracy addresses the political response to natural disasters, focusing specifically on the changing role of the federal government from distant observer to immediate responder and principal financier of disaster costs.

Author: Scott D. Sagan
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804797366
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book—the culmination of a truly collaborative international and highly interdisciplinary effort—brings together Japanese and American political scientists, nuclear engineers, historians, and physicists to examine the Fukushima accident from a new and broad perspective. It explains the complex interactions between nuclear safety risks (the causes and consequences of accidents) and nuclear security risks (the causes and consequences of sabotage or terrorist attacks), exposing the possible vulnerabilities all countries may have if they fail to learn from this accident. The book further analyzes the lessons of Fukushima in comparative perspective, focusing on the politics of safety and emergency preparedness. It first compares the different policies and procedures adopted by various nuclear facilities in Japan and then discusses the lessons learned—and not learned—after major nuclear accidents and incidents in other countries in the past. The book's editors conclude that learning lessons across nations has proven to be very difficult, and they propose new policies to improve global learning after nuclear accidents or attacks.

Author: Trevor A. Kletz
Publisher: Gulf Professional Publishing
ISBN: 9780884151548
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
It is by avoiding accidents that the process industries will improve their public image. Lessons from Disaster focuses upon the apparent inability of organizations to learn, and retain in long-term, the lessons drawn from accidents. Incidents of a similar type continue to occur within companies repeatedly. Trevor Kletz illustrates this with detailed cases, which form a gold mine of experience and advice for every engineer. He offers, with his customary vision and imagination, his own advice on how to improve the corporate memory.

Author: Barbara Allen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134073380
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Disasters are the result of complex interactions between social and natural forces, acting at multiple scales from the individual and community to the organisational, national and international level. Effective disaster planning, response and recovery require an understanding of these interacting forces, and the role of power, knowledge and organizations. This book sheds new light on these dynamics, and gives disaster scholars and practitioners new and valuable lessons for management and planning in practice. The authors draw on methods across the social sciences to examine disaster response and recovery as viewed by those in positions of authority and the 'recipients' of operations. These first two sections examine cases from Hurricane Katrina, while the third part compares this to other international disasters to draw out general lessons and practical applications for disaster planning in any context. The authors also offer guidance for shaping institutional structures to better meet the needs of communities and residents.

Author: Alejandro López-Carresi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136179771
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
There is a perennial gap between theory and practice, between academia and active professionals in the field of disaster management. This gap means that valuable lessons are not learned and people die or suffer as a result. This book opens a dialogue between theory and practice. It offers vital lessons to practitioners from scholarship on natural hazards, disaster risk management and reduction and developments studies, opening up new insights in accessible language with practical applications. It also offers to academics the insights of the enormous experience practitioners have accumulated, highlighting gaps in research and challenging assumptions and theories against the reality of experience. Disaster Management covers issues in all phases of the disaster cycle: preparedness, prevention, response and recovery. It also addresses cross-cutting issues including political, economic and social factors that influence differential vulnerability, and key areas of practice such as vulnerability mapping, early warning, infrastructure protection, emergency management, reconstruction, health care and education, and gender issues. The team of international authors combine their years of experience in research and the field to offer vital lessons for practitioners, academics and students alike.

Author: Marisa O. Ensor
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816549303
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Around the world disaster vulnerability is on the rise. The incidence and intensity of disasters have increased in recent decades with lives being shattered and resources being destroyed across broad geographic regions each year. As it swept across the Honduran landscape, the exceptional size, power and duration of Hurricane Mitch abruptly and brutally altered the already diminished economic, social, and environmental conditions of the population. In the aftermath of the disaster a group of seven socio-environmental scientists set out to investigate the root causes of the heightened vulnerability that characterized pre-Mitch Honduras, the impact of the catastrophe on the local society, and the subsequent recovery efforts. Edited by Marisa O. Ensor, this volume presents the findings of their investigation. The Legacy of Hurricane Mitch offers a comprehensive analysis of the immediate and long-term consequences of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras. Based on longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork and environmental assessments, this volume illustrates the importance of adopting an approach to disaster research and practice that places “natural” trigger events within their political, cultural, and socio-economic contexts. The contributors make a compelling case against post-disaster recovery efforts that limit themselves to alleviating the symptoms, rather than confronting the root causes of the vulnerability that prefigured the disaster.