November 24, 2006 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Project Activity Report

(1) DISASTERS WAITING TO HAPPEN:

Harden, Blaine. "`The Big One' Is a Big Problem for Old Seattle Houses." Wash. Post, 24Nov2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/23/AR2006112300971.html?referrer=email

[Excerpt: "A rupture along the Seattle Fault, which runs under the south end of the city and was unknown until 1992, would kill 1,600 people, injure 24,000 others, destroy 9,700 buildings and damage about 180,000 other structures, according to a scenario put together by earthquake experts and published last year with funding from the state of Washington. Big Ones occur here about every thousand years.... The last one occurred in what is now Seattle 1,100 years ago."]

(2) MITIGATION:

FEMA. Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast: Mitigation Assessment Team Report, Building Performance Observations, Recommendations, and Technical Guidance (FEMA 549). Washington DC: FEMA, July 2006. Accessed at: http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=1857

Thomas, Edward A. "Overcoming Legal Challenges: A Perfect Storm of Opportunity." Natural Hazards Observer, Vol. XXXI, No. 2, November 2006. Accessed at:

http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/o/archives/2006/nov06/nov06d.html

[Excerpt: "While the takings issue has gotten its greatest publicity as a property rights dispute between governments and developers, the reality is that state and local governments are vastly more likely to be successfully sued for permitting development that causes problems and restricts property use, such as roads, stormwater systems, and bridges, than they are for prohibiting such development. There have been almost no hazards-based regulations, such as those espoused by NAI, held to be a taking-almost none! On the other hand, there have been many, many cases where communities and landowners were held liable for harming others. In other words, the interference in legitimate property rights and the takings issue as it has been commonly understood, are nonissues in hazards regulation.... The concept of No Adverse Impact and the legal foundation it is built on can help develop win-win relationships between hazards managers and community development officials, developers, emergency managers, wetland managers, water quality managers, stormwater managers, and others to reduce or eliminate both impediments discussed herein: involvement and education and concerns about the takings issue."]

[BWB Note: Recommend that emergency management educators bring this article to the attention of their students. Recommend that emergency managers, certainly those in hazard-prone areas with developmental issues, provide copies to their planning department, legal beagle, developers, floodplain manager, and others concerned with hazardous development.]

(3) PANIC AND FEAR-MONGERING:

Dynes, Russell R. "Panic and the Vision of Collective Incompetence." Natural Hazards Observer, Vol. XXXI, No. 2, November 2006, pp. 5-6. Accessed at:

http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/o/archives/2006/nov06/nov06c.html

[Excerpts: "While panic flight is not unheard of, it is extremely rare in disasters, and similar kinds of crisis, and the notion that panic behavior spreads through contagion has been widely discredited.... The assumption that in a disaster people will flee danger without any rational thought and without regard for others has disastrous policy implications. It enforces the misconception that information about potential threats should be withheld from the public to avoid having to control hoards of people fleeing in panic. When officials buy-in to the belief that people are ill-equipped to handle bad news, they fail their citizens by denying them crucial preparedness and warning messages and delaying evacuation orders, often until it is too late.... Some have suggested that we have seen an increase in the market for fear in recent times.... recently, a terrorism expert posited that panic caused by terrorism could lead to the collapse of civil society.... Emergency response has become the province of experts and therapists. The only role for citizens is as victims. While we may understand our vulnerabilities, we are not so good at recognizing our own capabilities and resilience. Local knowledge and local resources are devalued and the emphasis on external assistance undercuts the importance of local coping skills...."]

[BWB Note: For much, if not most (I hope) of the emergency management community, this is preaching to the choir -- but, nonetheless, good reading. For many others, I fear such writing will be met dismissively. There are those who believe that 9/11 so changed the world, and that terrorism so differs from other hazards, that the pre-9/11 world of hazard and disaster-related social science research and literature is all but irrelevant.]

B.Wayne Blanchard, Ph.D., CEM

Higher Education Project Manager

Emergency Management Institute

National Emergency Training Center

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Department of Homeland Security

16825 S. Seton, K-011

Emmitsburg, MD 21727

(301) 447-1262, voice

(301) 447-1598, fax

http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu

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