Lessons of Disaster
Lessons of Disaster

Author: Thomas A. Birkland

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2006-11-07

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9781589013599

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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.

Dynamics of Disaster
Dynamics of Disaster

Author: Barbara Allen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1134073380

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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.

Lessons from Disaster
Lessons from Disaster

Author: Trevor A. Kletz

Publisher: Gulf Professional Publishing

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780884151548

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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.

Lessons in Disaster
Lessons in Disaster

Author: Gordon M. Goldstein

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0805079718

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

Trade Policy Disaster
Trade Policy Disaster

Author: Douglas A. Irwin

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2011-10-21

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 0262297744

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The extreme protectionism that contributed to a collapse of world trade in the 1930s is examined in light of the recent economic crisis. The recent economic crisis—with the plunge in the stock market, numerous bank failures and widespread financial distress, declining output and rising unemployment—has been reminiscent of the Great Depression. The Depression of the 1930s was marked by the spread of protectionist trade policies, which contributed to a collapse in world trade. Although policymakers today claim that they will resist the protectionist temptation, recessions are breeding grounds for economic nationalism, and countries may yet consider imposing higher trade barriers. In Trade Policy Disaster, Douglas Irwin examines what we know about trade policy during the traumatic decade of the 1930s and considers what we can learn from the policy missteps of the time. Irwin argues that the extreme protectionism of the 1930s emerged as a consequence of policymakers' reluctance to abandon the gold standard and allow their currencies to depreciate. By ruling out exchange rate changes as an adjustment mechanism, policymakers turned instead to higher tariffs and other means of restricting imports. He offers a clear and concise exposition of such topics as the effect of higher trade barriers on the implosion of world trade; the impact of the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930; the reasons some countries adopted draconian trade restrictions (including exchange controls and import quotas) but others did not; the effect of preferential trade arrangements and bilateral clearing agreements on the multilateral system of world trade; and lessons for avoiding future trade wars.

Organization at the Limit
Organization at the Limit

Author: William Starbuck

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2005-09-12

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 140513108X

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The book offers important insight relevant to Corporate, Government and Global organizations management in general. The internationally recognised authors tackle vital issues in decision making, how organizational risk is managed, how can technological and organizational complexities interact, what are the impediments for effective learning and how large, medium, and small organizations can, and in fact must, increase their resilience. Managers, organizational consultants, expert professionals, and training specialists; particularly those in high risk organizations, may find the issues covered in the book relevant to their daily work and a potential catalyst for thought and action. A timely analysis of the Columbia disaster and the organizational lessons that can be learned from it. Includes contributions from those involved in the Investigation Board report into the incident. Tackles vital issues such as the role of time pressures and goal conflict in decision making, and the impediments for effective learning. Examines how organizational risk is managed and how technological and organizational complexities interact. Assesses how large, medium, and small organizations can, and in fact must, increase their resilience. Questions our eagerness to embrace new technologies, yet reluctance to accept the risks of innovation. Offers a step by step understanding of the complex factors that led to disaster.

Disaster Management
Disaster Management

Author: Alejandro Lopez-Carresi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-12

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1136179771

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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.

A Safer Future
A Safer Future

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1991-02-01

Total Pages: 85

ISBN-13: 0309045460

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Initial priorities for U.S. participation in the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, declared by the United Nations, are contained in this volume. It focuses on seven issues: hazard and risk assessment; awareness and education; mitigation; preparedness for emergency response; recovery and reconstruction; prediction and warning; learning from disasters; and U.S. participation internationally. The committee presents its philosophy of calls for broad public and private participation to reduce the toll of disasters.

Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster
Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster

Author: Eugenie L. Birch

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2013-01-09

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 0812204484

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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.

The Lessons of Tragedy
The Lessons of Tragedy

Author: Hal Brands

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-02-26

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 0300244924

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A “brilliant” examination of American complacency and how it puts the nation’s—and the world’s—security at risk (The Wall Street Journal). The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility and courage—to spur citizens and their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such a fate. Today, after more than seventy years of great-power peace and a quarter-century of unrivaled global leadership, Americans have lost their sense of tragedy. They have forgotten that the descent into violence and war has been all too common throughout human history. This amnesia has become most pronounced just as Americans and the global order they created are coming under graver threat than at any time in decades. In a forceful argument that brims with historical sensibility and policy insights, two distinguished historians argue that a tragic sensibility is necessary if America and its allies are to address the dangers that menace the international order today. Tragedy may be commonplace, Brands and Edel argue, but it is not inevitable—so long as we regain an appreciation of the world’s tragic nature before it is too late. “Literate and lucid—sure to interest to readers of Fukuyama, Huntington, and similar authors as well as students of modern realpolitik.” —Kirkus Reviews