Irwin Redlener

Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, discusses the political, social, and economic bases for why we are so appallingly underprepared for disasters in the United States today.

"How is America Still Vulnerable?" looks at six disasters that could visit disaster on the US, sometimes far worse than Katrina:
>Pandemic influenza (or worse)
>Natural megadisasters, like a major earthquake in Seattle and Puget Sound
>Nuclear terrorism
>Tornado striking a chemical plant
>Attack on an elementary or secondary school

In each case, Dr. Redlener shows clearly how painfully vulnerable we are, how such a scenario could occur, and what some of the consequences would be. He also goes into what might be done to prevent or mitigate such incidents. Of course, these are just a few of the disasters we could experience, but they're representative and help to give context to our overall (lack of) readiness and resiliency.

Once Dr. Redlener has us good and scared, he delves into *why* we are so unprepared. The next section lists "four barriers to optimal readiness:"
:::Goals and Accountability--or Random Acts of Preparedness (for all our talk, work, and expenditure, we lack a comprehensive, coherent, goal-based approach to disaster preparedness: much of what we do nationally amounts to flailing around. Flailing your arms around will get you a lot of space on the street, and might even get rid of someone who's just being annoying, but a determined attacker will barely be slowed by flailing arms. That's our situation)
:::Failure of Imagination: It's Always in the Details
:::Missing and Misplaced Leadership: Who's in Charge?
:::The Strange Psychology of Preparedness and Why the Public Isn't Buying

Finally, Dr. Redlener--like anyone writing a book about The Problem Of ________ That Confronts Us should do--lays out his recommendations for how we can change the current state of affairs, including "Rational Preparedness for an Uncertain Future: A Nine-Point Plan" and "Beyond Batteries and Go-Packs: Redlener's Eight Principles of Disaster Preparedness and Survival."

This book is well-written and easily accessible to the public, and I wish more of the public would take time to access it. What's more, I wish more of our legislators would take the time to access it. Just as armed services are generally "preparing to fight the last war," so our nation is busily preparing to fight the last disaster. Actually, since Katrina was our last mega-disaster, we're doing worse than that: we're preparing for another 9/11. The problem is that the Bad Guys aren't going to try another 9/11, because they know they'd never succeed. On 9/12/2001, "skyjacker" became the world's most hazardous profession, with an expected mortality rate approaching 100% and a projected success rate asymptotically close to zero. We're busy looking in our rear-view mirrors, carefully preventing another 9/11, when the Bad Guys have moved on, and we need to start looking forward and around lest we be blindsided.

Of course, we also spend a disproportionate amount of our readiness funds on terrorism, even though ten times as many people die on our nation's highways every year as died in the 9/11 attacks (http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx), and major natural disasters cost the US over forty billion dollars in 2011 alone (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0882823.html). Dr. Redlener discusses why and how our priorities are whacked (my word, not his) and puts together a powerful analysis of how we can make ourselves more ready and more resilient. The cost is surprisingly low: we lack the will and understanding to implement the fix. I'm sure Dr. Redlener will take no pleasure in being able to say "I told you so" if we don't get our acts together before the next disaster.… (mehr)