Disaster Amanda Ripley Analysis

Summary Chapter 2 of “The smartest kids in the world and how they got that way” written by Amanda Ripley (2013) described the school experience of Kim and her journey in attending school in Finland. Kim can be described as intellectually gifted, adventurous and curious about the world. Kim did not want to spend her whole life in the small town of Sallisaw Oklahoma, and with the persuasion of her sister, she sought opportunities to study abroad. Kim read information on Finland, and she appreciated how education is viewed differently there than in the United States. It was expensive to go to Finland, so Kim raised money, earned scholarships and received a donation from her grandparents (Ripley, 2013).

Natural and man-made disasters have increased in the past decade, and due to these changes, Emergency Managers had to make drastic changes in order to improve the way first responders operate in a disaster area.

And it involves interaction with familiar faces, tasks, procedures, and organizations. (Auf der Heide, Erik. 1989) An emergency is generally personal in nature. A disaster is “an event associated with the impact of a natural hazard, which leads to increased mortality, illness and/or injury, and destroys or disrupts livelihoods, affecting the people or an area such that they (and/or outsiders) perceive it as being exceptional and requiring external assistance for recovery” (Cannon 1994, 29, fn.2). Finally, a catastrophe can be viewed as “…any disaster that overwhelms the ability of state, local, and volunteer agencies to adequately provide victims with such life-sustaining mass care services as food, shelter, and medical assistance within the first 12 to 24 hours.” (GAO, Disaster Management, 1993, p. 3).

When I lived in Los Angeles during high school, me and my neighbor Brandon would frequently take the Metro train to get to school. While we waited on the platform for the train to come, we would occasionally hear the automated intercom announcement say, “In case of an emergency, do not hesitate to locate the nearest emergency phones or Metro sheriff.” This recurring message was often ignored by not only us. Who seemed to also disregard the monotone voice were other passengers who either were occupied with other things or had earphones in and simply did not hear it. The problem with this is, if an emergency or disaster happened at that moment, how many of us would know the right way to react? If there was a fire, we wouldn’t know how to properly engage in saving ourselves. Unfortunately, the only warning us everyday citizens were given was to call officials. There were no specific instructions on what we could do in case an emergency arises at the train station. In Amanda Ripley’s The Unthinkable, she covers disasters when they happen and how humans that are involved respond to them. Ripley argues that when someone is involved in a disaster, they experience human responses such as being in denial or delaying proper reactions. Because we can not control the brain and our irrational thoughts tend to obscure us, we should raise more awareness of likely disasters and train regular citizens accordingly.

In the book Survival 101 by Marcus Duke he talks about the essentials You need to survive a natural disaster and a government break down. He talks about how to Know what to do when a event of an emergency happens so you and everyone else will stay calm. He also talks about how Panic is dangerous and nonproductive. Some of the best things you can do is stay organized, take appropriate leadership roles and duties. The reason I like this book is because it teaches you how to survive natural disasters.

According to Jack Herrmann is Asst. Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine “Disaster management is the preparation for, response to, and recovery from disaster. While there are different understandings of Disaster Management, it is generally viewed as a cycle with the following five key phases:

In emergency situations people act the way they do depending on how sever they think that the emergency is. For example if the emergency is really tragic then people could do irrational things because they are in shock or panicking. Also people usually panic and only think for their own survival not others in an emergency such as 9/11. People only want to get out of the building and away from the emergency because then they know that they are safe and not in harm’s way anymore. In the article Simplexity by Jeffery Kluger he points out how people can act like water particles in emergency situations.

Another reason the majority are not in readiness of an emergency situation is because, as Dennis Mileti stated, “ Individuals underperceive risk” (Ripley 43). As a person who has been studying ways to warn people of disasters for over 30 years, Mileti believes that we tend to discount low probability, high consequence events. When we think of a disaster, the routine thought is to assume that the probability is so low that it could never possibly happen to us. “Not this plane ride, not this drive, not this time” is what we tell ourselves, making us doubt the high risk situation. In Chapter 2 of Ripley’s book, she recounts an interview that she did with the daughter of a man who underestimated the power of Hurricane Katrina. The 85 year old man, Patrick Turner, had survived the past two hurricanes that hit Louisiana before Katrina did (Ripley 24). When he heard of the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, he did not take it as serious as he should have because the warnings the government gave about this tsunami were the same as the last two and the last two hurricanes ended up not being that bad. Before the last hurricane, Turner spent over 10 hours on the road evacuating only to find out that it was not severe. Because of the wrong preparation

Moving forward to the 20th century, the 1979 film Alien and 1986 film Aliens depicts a very different hero to the ancient heroes like Achilles and Aeneas. Though there is a significant amount of variation in modern day heroes now than there was in the time of Homer and Virgil, these heroes are accepted for their character flaws as it makes them much more relatable to the modern audience, much like what Virgil was trying to do with Aeneas. Ellen Ripley, as introduced in Alien and seen in the , is a warrant officer on-board the spacecraft Nostromo, a commercial towing ship. Immediately, we see this person as being completely ordinary and would have lived a completely normal life if it weren't for the events to come later in the film. In fact, at first she seems like a side character. It is when the Alien is introduced into the narrative that she

(p.2) With that, he prepared literature summaries on the distinction of disasters from hazards; social dimensions of disasters; and emergency management. Then, he introduced two main debatable issues, including: (1) the context of "disaster" and (2) paradigms on vulnerability/risk. In the first issue, the author enumerated simple connotations of disaster in several languages and jumped to precise event-based definitions as mentioned in Britton (1987) and Fisher (2003)'s studies. As for the second issue, he emphasized that many scholars are built upon the framework of Barton (1969) on collective stress. (p.8) With that, paradigm shifts (mentioned in the article) led to the focus on "vulnerability" in studying disasters. For example, the author cited the 9/11 attack in New York as a "national" disaster on the basis of the city’s “vulnerability” in terrorist attacks. In the later parts of the article, the author summed up by listing 5 principle-recommendations for emergency managers and addressed 2 key priorities for future research: (1) alternative theoretical perspectives and (2) develop a global

Good Day, Nathaniel Thank you for this week's discussion post. The adaptation of using social cognitive theory (SCT) into the lack of hurricane preparedness is applicable. Hurricane is a severe environmental issue caused by natural disaster, which requires immediate attention and intervention to predict some of the environmental hazards. The SCT determines the interaction between the environment and the behavioral of the unprepared community suggest a need for quicker resiliency and recovery action (Glanz, Rimer, & Viswanath, 2015). Therefore, the ability to develop and change the unexpected outcome can only reduce the unpreparedness.

In the Disaster in Franklin County simulation (Regents of the University of Minnesota [UMN], 2006), there were several key personnel in the incident command team. This concept is utilized in real disasters when the Public

Purpose: Everyone will think that we are living in a peaceful state now and ignore to pay attention to the natural disaster information. On the contrary, this thought in your mind will reduce your sense of crisis. Believe or not, increase a sense of crisis of the earthquake and learn more earthquake information can decrease the damage when the earthquakes occur in our life

When a disaster has taken place, first responders who provide fire and medical services will not be equipped to meet the demands for many services. Several issues such as the number of victims, communication failures and road blockages will stop people from accessing emergency services they have come to expect at a moment 's notice through 911 emergency services. Individuals will have to rely on others for help in order to meet their immediate lifesaving and life sustaining needs. If access is blocked or the agency’s capacity is exceeded, it may be hours or days before trained help arrives. There is a four-phase model that organizes the events of emergency managers. This model is known as the “life cycle” which includes dour

Risk for disasters is a part of life; emergency situations occur more frequently than many people believe. A wise person plans for the worse, and hopes for the best. After a disaster, how well a community can recover will depend largely on how well they prepared in advance. Risk management includes identifying any potential risks to a community and proactively planning to minimize the threat. Proactive organization of resources and people to respond to emergencies can mean the difference between a community’s ability to regroup and recover, and the loss of life. To better