The sociology of hazardous waste, risk, and disasters is a relatively new discipline. This book focuses on hazardous and toxic wastes releases, industrial toxic disasters, contamination of communities and the environment, and the subsequent adverse health effects among exposed populations

Some of our most disturbing images of Hurricane Katrina involve the very old, trapped in flooded nursing homes, and the very young, sick in toxic trailers. Using the Katrina-Rita nexus as its reference point, Lifespan Perspectives on Natural Disasters takes the developmental long view on human strengths and vulnerabilities during large-scale devastation and crisis. An expert panel of behavioral scientists and first responders analyzes the psychological impact of natural disasters on-and coping faculties associated with-children, adolescents, and young, middle-aged, older, young-old and late-life oldest-old adults. This timely information is invaluable both to mental health service providers and to those tasked with developing age-appropriate disaster preparedness, intervention, and recovery programs. In addition, the book references other deadly storms as well as other major catastrophic events (e.g., the September 11 attacks, the Indian Ocean Tsunami), and includes such topics as: Young children's understanding of hurricanes. Positive adjustment in youth after Katrina. How families make meaning out of disaster. Disaster recovery in the workplace. Recovery services for the frail elderly. Coping and health in late life. Preparation and training mental health personnel for disasters. Unique in the disaster literature, Lifespan Perspectives on Natural Disasters serves as a research reference and idea book for professionals and graduate-level students in psychology, social work, and disaster preparedness and services.

Disaster Theory: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Concepts and Causes offers the theoretical background needed to understand what disasters are and why they occur. Drawing on related disciplines, including sociology, risk theory, and seminal research on disasters and emergency management, Disaster Theory clearly lays out the conceptual framework of the emerging field of disaster studies. Tailored to the needs of advanced undergraduates and graduate students, this unique text also provides an ideal capstone for students who have already been introduced to the fundamentals of emergency management. Disaster Theory emphasizes the application of critical thinking in understanding disasters and their causes by synthesizing a wide range of information on theory and practice, including input from leading scholars in the field.

When Gloucestershire was hit by flash flooding after heavy rainfall on Friday 20 July 2007, the result was catastrophic. Roads were blocked and cars left abandoned in towns and villages around the county. After floodwater overwhelmed the Mythe pumping plant near the normally peaceful town of Tewkesbury, 350,000 people were left without running water and electricity supplies, while hundreds of homes and businesses were wrecked by the floodwater. Included here are vivid accounts of evacuation and helicopter rescues by the RAF (their largest peacetime rescue operation to date), bowsers, bottled water and, of course, the gruelling clean-up operation. As the police, Environment Agency, emergency services and the military joined forces to deal with the crisis and subsequent water shortage, contributors to this book also recall tales of community camaraderie and acts of bravery by ordinary people.

The "BASIC Ph" model of coping and resiliency, developed by Prof. Mooli Lahad and Dr. Ofra Ayalon, was the first to describe coping as an on-going effort to manage life challenges. This is the first book to be published on this world-renowned approach, widely used as an effective resiliency assessment, intervention, and recovery model. Underpinning the model is the suggestion that every person has internal powers, or coping resources, which can be mobilized in stressful situations; the effort to survive coming from a healthy rather than a pathological instinct. The categorization of these coping resources gives the model its name: Belief, Affect, Social, Imagination, Cognition, Physical. This edited volume outlines the theory behind the "BASIC Ph" approach, presents practice-based and research-based interventions and explains their application during and in the wake of both natural and man-made disasters. With wide-ranging chapters from authoritative contributors, the book shows how the "BASIC Ph" model can be successfully applied in family, community, education, health, and business settings. This will be an invaluable text for professionals, academics, and students with an interest in trauma and coping with crisis and disaster.

Neither government programs nor massive charitable efforts responded adequately to the human crisis that was Hurricane Katrina. In this study, the authors use extensive interviews with Katrina evacuees and reports from service providers to identify what helped or hindered the reestablishment of the lives of hurricane survivors who relocated to Austin, Texas. Drawing on social capital and social network theory, the authors assess the complementary, and often conflicting, roles of FEMA, other governmental agencies and a range of non-governmental organizations in addressing survivors' short- and longer-term needs. While these organizations came together to assist with immediate emergency needs, even collectively they could not deal with survivors' long-term needs for employment, affordable housing and personal records necessary to rebuild lives. Community Lost provides empirical evidence that civil society organizations cannot substitute for an efficient and benevolent state, which is necessary for society to function.

This book addresses all the special considerations important in planning for disasters, from natural disasters to acts of terrorism to catastrophic events.

It covers all aspects from assessing the risk prior to a disaster to the legal ramifications following a disaster. The text addresses the "how-tos" of avoiding the common mistakes which turn natural and man-made catastrophes into economic disasters. It encompasses not only the tried and true tactics used for decades but also focuses on areas often overlooked during the reactive and post disaster phases.

Organizations can be prepared and proactive by using this guide to make a disaster management plan before disaster strikes.

Meltdown investigates and recreates the dramatic events behind the most notorious nuclear accidents in history, as well as those shrouded in secrecy. Combining human tragedy with intriguing science, each account reveals new aspects of humanity's complex relationship with nuclear power and the ongoing struggle to harness and control it. From the pioneers of Los Alamos who got up close and personal with the cores of atomic bombs, to the hapless engineers in Soviet fuel-processing plants who unwittingly mixed up a disaster in a bucket, and from the terrifying impact of a tsunami at Fukushima to the mystery of the recent Russian incident, Meltdown explores the past and future of this extraordinary and potentially lethal source of infinite power.

This edited volume was originally published in 2000 and presents a comprehensive, interdisciplinary review of issues related to inland flood hazards. It addresses physical controls on flooding, flood processes and effects, and responses to flooding, from the perspective of human, aquatic, and riparian communities. Individual chapter authors are recognized experts in their fields who draw on examples and case studies of inland flood hazards from around the world. This volume is unusual among treatments of flood hazards in that it addresses how the non-occurrence of floods, in association with flow regulation and other human manipulation of river systems, may create hazards for aquatic and riparian communities. This book will be a valuable resource for everyone associated with inland flood hazards: professionals in government and industry, and researchers and graduate students in civil engineering, geography, geology, hydrology, hydraulics, and ecology.

Mass trauma events, such as natural disasters, war and torture, affect millions of people every year. Currently, there is no mental health care model with the potential to address the psychological needs of survivors in a cost-effective way. This book presents such a model, along with guidance on its implementation, making it invaluable for both policy-makers and mental health professionals. Building on more than twenty years of extensive research with mass trauma survivors, the authors present a model of traumatic stress to aid understanding of mass trauma and how its psychological impact can be overcome with control-focused behavioral treatment. This text offers a critical review of various controversial issues in the field of psychological trauma in light of recent research findings. Including two structured manuals on earthquake trauma, covering treatment delivery and self-help, the book will be of use to survivors themselves as well as care providers.

Children have a fundamental right to education, and to the protection that schools uniquely provide in the chaos that characterizes life for refugees and internally displaced persons. This book is grounded in the personal experiences of children, aid workers, and national leaders involved in post-conflict resolution. Experts from many troubled parts of the world consider the scope of the problem, as well as the tools needed to address the crisis.

This book was first published in 2005. Time may be running out for Venice. With rising average water levels, the frequency of city flooding is increasing and the threat of a repeat of the November 1966 events, when a violent storm surge took water levels nearly two metres higher than usual, remains. Surrounding the city is a severely degraded lagoon ecosystem. This timely scientific and technical volume synthesises the great wealth and diversity of recent interdisciplinary research on Venice and its Lagoon and the prospects for large engineering interventions to separate the lagoon and sea, as well as other measures in the built environment, discussed at an International Conference, held at Churchill College, Cambridge, in September 2003. The lessons and inferences reported here show how Venice, with its mix of challenges to protect its prestigious cultural heritage within one of the largest coastal wetlands in the Mediterranean, and against a background of pressures brought about by industry, port activities and tourism, share many issues with other areas threatened by coastal flooding, including areas of the Netherlands, the USA and the cities of London and St Petersburg.

In recent years, the psychological effects of violence and warfare on civilian populations have increasingly become the focus of humanitarian relief operations. After both natural and man-made disasters, efforts to provide de-briefing, counselling and therapy for survivors are widely seen as an essential part of the emergency response. Much of the analysis of trauma has revolved around the concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is now generally assumed that PTSD captures the fundamental psychological disturbance after any particular type of trauma or extreme event. However, there is now growing concern that models developed in Western psychiatry in response to trauma should not be used uncritically in societies that do not share the same cultural preoccupations. So rapid has been the response that there has been little time to reflect on the relevance of psyche-social trauma projects for local populations.

This book examines emerging concerns about the export of trauma experts and counsellors to war-tom areas of the world. The contributors are all professionals who are involved in helping adults and children rebuild their lives after witnessing the destruction of their families and communities. Based on their own experience of working internationally, this book presents both an analysis of current, misconceived, attempts to give help but also an agenda for future, more appropriate ways of responding to those affected by wars and conflicts.

The constant threat of crises such as disasters, riots and terrorist attacks poses a frightening challenge to Western societies and governments. While the causes and dynamics of these events have been widely studied, we know little about what happens following their containment and the restoration of stability. This volume explores 'post-crisis politics, ' examining how crises give birth to longer term dynamic processes of accountability and learning which are characterised by official investigations, blame games, political manoeuvring, media scrutiny and crisis exploitation. Drawing from a wide range of contemporary crises, including Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, the Madrid train bombings, the Walkerton water contamination, Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia and the Boxing Day Asian tsunami, this is a ground-breaking volume which addresses the longer term impact of crisis-induced politics. Competing pressures for stability and change mean that policies, institutions and leaders may occasionally be uprooted, but often survive largely intact.

Scientists predict the earth is facing 40-to-60 years of climate change, even if emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases stopped today. One inevitable consequence of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere will be an increase in the frequency and severity of natural disaster events. Global Warming, Natural Hazards, and Emergency Management documents the imperative need for communities to prepare for the coming effects of climate change and provides a series of in-depth, road-tested recommendations on how to reduce risks for communities and businesses. Frontline Advice for Increasing Defenses and Reducing Impacts of Global Warming Authored and edited by emergency management and environmental protection professionals from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Sierra Club, this book offers case histories from communities across America that have successfully reduced the extent and consequences of natural disasters. These examples are becoming increasingly important to understand and replicate as the risks to communities created by a changing climate rise. This book recognizes three fundamental principles essential to developing a disaster-prevention strategy: The protection of natural systems is an important security measure The reduction of disaster risk, not just response, is of great importance Local communities must take the lead in prevention efforts Provides Local Governments with Replicable Case Histories of Hazard Mitigation Efforts This no-nonsense reference is a procedural roadmap for emergency managers, policy makers, and community officials. It explains how to develop community partnerships among a myriad of stakeholders; identifies staffing and resource requirements for successful programs; and provides a step-by-step demonstration of the disaster-planning process at the community level.

For months in early 1980, scientists, journalists and ordinary people listened anxiously to rumblings in the long quiescent volcano Mount St. Helens. Still, when a massive explosion took the top off the mountain, no one was prepared. Fifty-seven people died and the lives of many others were changed forever. Steve Olson interweaves history, science and vivid personal stories to portray the disaster as a multi-faceted turning point. Powerful economic, political and historical forces influenced who died when the volcano erupted. The eruption of Mount St. Helens transformed volcanic science, the study of environmental resilience and our perceptions of how to survive on an increasingly dangerous planet.

Earthquakes are a huge global threat. In thirty-six countries, severe seismic risks threaten populations and their increasingly interdependent systems of transportation, communication, energy, and finance. In this important book, Louise Comfort provides an unprecedented examination of how twelve communities in nine countries responded to destructive earthquakes between 1999 and 2015. And many of the book's lessons can also be applied to other large-scale risks. The Dynamics of Risk sets the global problem of seismic risk in the framework of complex adaptive systems to explore how the consequences of such events ripple across jurisdictions, communities, and organizations in complex societies, triggering unexpected alliances but also exposing social, economic, and legal gaps. The book assesses how the networks of organizations involved in response and recovery adapted and acted collectively after the twelve earthquakes it examines. It describes how advances in information technology enabled some communities to anticipate seismic risk better and to manage response and recovery operations more effectively, decreasing losses. Finally, the book shows why investing substantively in global information infrastructure would create shared awareness of seismic risk and make postdisaster relief more effective and less expensive. The result is a landmark study of how to improve the way we prepare for and respond to earthquakes and other disasters in our ever-more-complex world.

A richly nuanced cultural history of the Great Mississippi flood The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in U.S. history, drowning crops and displacing more than half a million people across seven states. It was also the first environmental disaster to be experienced virtually on a mass scale. The Flood Year 1927 draws from newspapers, radio broadcasts, political cartoons, vaudeville, blues songs, poetry, and fiction to show how this event provoked an intense and lasting cultural response. Americans at first seemed united in what Herbert Hoover called a "great relief machine," but deep rifts soon arose. Southerners, pointing to faulty federal levee design, decried the attack of Yankee water. The condition of African American evacuees prompted comparisons to slavery from pundits like W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells. And environmentalists like Gifford Pinchot called the flood "the most colossal blunder in civilized history." Susan Scott Parrish examines how these and other key figures-from entertainers Will Rogers, Miller & Lyles, and Bessie Smith to authors Sterling Brown, William Faulkner, and Richard Wright-shaped public awareness and collective memory of the event. The crises of this period that usually dominate historical accounts are war and financial collapse, but The Flood Year 1927 allows us to assess how mediated environmental disasters became central to modern consciousness.

The 1970s were a decade of historic American energy crises-major interruptions in oil supplies from the Middle East, the country's most dangerous nuclear accident, and chronic shortages of natural gas. In Energy Crises, Jay Hakes brings his expertise in energy and presidential history to bear on the questions of why these crises occurred, how different choices might have prevented or ameliorated them, and what they have meant for the half-century since-and likely the half-century ahead. Hakes deftly intertwines the domestic and international aspects of the long-misunderstood fuel shortages that still affect our lives today. This approach, drawing on previously unavailable and inaccessible records, affords an insider's view of decision-making by three U.S. presidents, the influence of their sometimes-combative aides, and their often tortuous relations with the rulers of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Hakes skillfully dissects inept federal attempts to regulate oil prices and allocation, but also identifies the decade's more positive legacies-from the nation's first massive commitment to the development of alternative energy sources other than nuclear power, to the initial movement toward a less polluting, more efficient energy economy. The 1970s brought about a tectonic shift in the world of energy. Tracing these consequences to their origins in policy and practice, Hakes makes their lessons available at a critical moment-as the nation faces the challenge of climate change resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.

Decision-Making in Emergency Management examines decisions the authors have made over their careers based on their combined training, experience and instinct. Through a broad range of case studies, readers discover how experience impacts decision-making in conjunction with research and tools available. While the use of science, data and industry standards are always the best option when it comes to handling emergency situations, not all emergency situations fit one known solution. This book comprehensively explores the question "Is 'instinct' a viable factor when faced with a challenging situation and how close does it match up with the best science available?"

In this synthetic, interdisciplinary work, Neil Brenner develops a new interpretation of the transformation of statehood under contemporary globalizing capitalism. Whereas most analysts of the emergent, post-Westphalian world order have focused on supranational and national institutional realignments, New State Spaces shows that strategic subnational spaces, such as cities and city-regions, represent essential arenas in which states are being transformed. Brenner traces the transformation of urban governance in western Europe during the last four decades and, on this basis, argues that inherited geographies of state power are being fundamentally rescaled. Through a combination of theory construction, historical analysis and cross-national case studies of urban policy change, New State Spaces provides an innovative analysis of the new formations of state power that are currently emerging.