The Problem Of Natural Disasters

(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

Natural disasters not only affect individual people in the area where it hit but they are able to affect the entire country from an economic standpoint. Other than the loss of lives, schools, and businesses which is the most obvious type of damage that we think of, most people rarely see the whole picture. One of the biggest problems caused by natural disasters is the disruption of the business world. This comes from damage to roadways and infrastructure. These cause major delays in production. It makes it harder to commute and communicate across the business world. The cost of the damage can be measured by several factors and also the type of natural disaster. One key factor that has an impact is the magnitude and duration of the event. Disasters that hit more populated areas have a stronger influence of hurting the national economy than if a disaster hits a less densely populated area. Changes in the peoples wealth can be affected due to damage to houses, buildings, structures, crops and forests. There are two types of losses when a natural disaster occurs. Direct losses and indirect losses. Some examples of direct losses could be homes, schools, and businesses. Examples of indirect losses would be all the components affected as the aftermath of the storm such as commuter disruptions, local tax revenues.

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).

Natural disaster threats accompany people practically everywhere and often people are unaware of the fact that one day the disaster may strike and change their life drastically, such as the ones that can occur in Huskietown. In such a situation, it is important to get prepared for potential disasters and know how to act and behave in different situations. To make it clearer, it is necessary to have a clear plan of action in case of a disaster and, what is not less important, it is necessary to clearly understand what real natural disasters can really occur in the given area. In such a way, it is obvious that in order to come prepared to a disaster it is necessary to know as much information about the disaster itself, its effects

Disasters are bound to strike at a given time and they more often find us unaware, this is the sole reason why the majority of the disasters that happen are usually fatal and destructive. This then calls for the need to try as much as possible to prevent these disasters and in particular in our cities. This is due to the fact that in the cities there are large populations that live close to each other or work in offices crammed together hence the likelihood of a disaster turning absolutely fatal if and when it strikes. However, due to the inevitable nature of these disasters, it is upon us to make adequate preparations that can enable us to minimize the effects of the natural disasters as much as possible when and if they happen.

Reactions to Natural Disasters How would you feel if a natural disaster hit your city, and everything in it was destroyed? For people in the Philippines, this is exactly what is happening. A deadly magnitude of a 7.1 earthquake struck the Central Philippines on a National Holiday and was the strongest to strike in the last 23 years (Background Essay ). 43,000 people experienced this severe shaking and everything was destroyed (Background Essay). A few years before in 1990 a magnitude of 6 occurred on the Fault line and $154 million in damage and injured about 300 people in result.

Any time that the federal agency that responds to disaster events handles such situations there is likely to be a significant loss of life due to the disaster event. This makes a requirement that responders know how to deal with the psychological issues and challenges that are present. It is reported that mental and behavioral health, "in the context of disasters and emergencies, include a wide range of interrelated factors psychological (emotional, cognitive, behavioral), psychological and social that influence people's ability to cope with and recover from extreme situations." (Disaster Mental Health Subcommittee of the National Biodefense Science Board, 2010, p.4) Stated as examples of such issues are those of "fear and anxiety resulting from safety concerns, the death of loved ones, separation from family members and uncertainty as to their fate, and loss of homes and possessions; noncompliance with government directives resulting from loss of confidence in authorities; breakdown in community social

After I read this article, I find interesting that only 15% or less people will completely freak out in a disaster. I am actually expecting more since most disaster moves I have watched show that people tend to react in this way. I am also surprised about that, in reality, vast majority of people will shut down for a moment when facing a disaster. But after I learned how people’s brain works in a disaster, this completely make sense to me now.

Many people fear of these natural disasters, but Lynn says “that’s life, and you can’t live in fear of that.” Fear can create irrational decisions and fuel the fire of panic, but there is a difference between being fearful and being irrational. Fear is something that can be contained and should not significantly influence the life of you or the people around you. Being fearful means you react in a certain way in the event of a crisis. Being irrational is having that fear present in your everyday life. Although the human mind has an automatic mechanism, called the fight or flight mechanism, to trigger fear it should be a thought for the back of your mind. When one lives in fear he lives under the rule of

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

Natural disasters have never been an issue for me in the twenty years I have been living in Florida. There have always been the threats of dangerous hurricanes living near the coast, but I never took them seriously. I always thought " they're just little storms, what's the worst that could happen?". I was so naive to think that way.

While natural disasters such as floods, drought and hurricanes are commonly thought to occur due to environmental forces such as weather, climate and tectonic movements; a deeper investigation into the ‘disaster’ displays other contributing forces. Human factors have a large, if not equal, contribution to the occurrance and outcome of such disasters (Pelling, 2001). As Pelling (2001) argues, there is both a physical and human dimension to ‘natural disasters’. The extent to which the natural occurrence of a physical process, such as a flood or earthquake, impacts on society is constructed by that society, creating a ‘disaster’ as measured by a

While watching the everyday “natural disaster” filled news, did you ever fathom questions consisting the concerns as to why tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods occur every so often? When did society event hurricane season and why? Finally, are natural disasters indeed natural or man-made? To me, natural disasters arise due to the abuse of earths elements by humanity.

An earthquake that struck Bam, an Iranian city, killed 27,000 people and left 90 percent of housing destroyed. An earthquake just as strong hit San Simeon in California leaving only 2 casualties and 40 damaged homes (Staff). While even just one death is still a tragedy, there is a massive gap between 27,000 individuals and 2. But if both earthquakes hit with the same force, what differed? Why did one earthquake have such a large impact? The simple answer to this lies in the location of the earthquake. The first earthquake occurred in the less developed country of Iran. The other one struck California located in the U.S., a developed nation. Due to a variety of factors, developing countries have proven to be more vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters.

Among many natural disasters in this world, there are three natural things that are responsible for natural disasters. These three are earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanos. We humans call them Natural “Disasters” because they could destroy all of us or all our homes and important things we need to survive. Without humans, they would only be called natural events because they would not have anything to destroy. Starting with the earthquakes, they have the potential to cause harm and injury, cost loved ones and other people their lives. Earthquakes also have the potential to weaken the foundation of buildings, roads, and bridges and cause them to collapse. During an earthquake, some buildings even collapse imminently, after that the