ok not that anyone will read it or follow the links in the story (see the comments on the previous video i posted);^)
People who understand climate science realize that micro events such as individual storms, or temperatures on a single continent, are basically unrelated to global climate change.
But lay people do like to find confirmation of their beliefs and biases in the world around them. One place that people who reject anthropogenic warming have found to confirm their beliefs is the opinions of TV weathermen/women.
Meteorology has a deceptively close relationship with climatology: both disciplines study the same general subject, the behavior of the atmosphere, but they ask very different questions about it. Meteorologists live in the short term, the day-to-day forecast. It’s an incredibly hard thing to predict accurately, even with the best models and data; tiny discrepancies matter enormously, and can pile up quickly into giant errors. Given this level of uncertainty in their own work, meteorologist looking at long-range climate questions are predisposed to see a system doomed to terminal unpredictability. But in fact, the basic question of whether rising greenhouse gas emissions will lead to climate change hinges on mostly simple, and predictable, matters of physics. The short-term variations that throw the weathercasters’ forecasts out of whack barely register at all . . .
The AMS had succeeded in making many weathercasters into responsible authorities in their own wheelhouse, but somewhere along the way that narrow professional authority had been misconstrued as a sort of all-purpose scientific legitimacy. It had bolstered meteorologists’ sense of their expertise outside of their own discipline, without necessarily improving the expertise itself. Most scientists are loath to speak to subjects outside of their own field, and with good reason—you wouldn’t expect a dentist to know much about, say, the geological strata of the Grand Canyon. But meteorologists, by virtue of typically being the only people with any science background at their stations, are under the opposite pressure—to be conversant in anything and everything scientific. This is a good thing if you see yourself as a science communicator, someone who sifts the good information from the bad—but it becomes a problem when you start to see scientific authority springing from your own haphazardly informed intuition, as many of the skeptic weathercasters do. Among the certified meteorologists Wilson surveyed in 2008, 79 percent considered it appropriate to educate their communities about climate change. Few of them, however, had taken the steps necessary to fully educate themselves about it . . .
"I just found the deed to his property crumpled up in this suit pocket"
"Oh yeah, that was right after we bought everything else he owned and kicked him out. Wonder what happened to him?"
"don't know"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
I know right? My stepson is kinda nerdy really smart, good at math and science (definitely did not get his genes from me!). I am always telling him that he needs to keep it up we are all relying on him to support us later on.
This article is crap. To paraphrase: this storm was the biggest by physical attributes. Others have cost more when adjusted for inflation. We should measure based on cost vs. physical parameters, so hurricanes that don't hit big cities won't really count. It's our own fault for putting cities where hurricanes will hit them. Yay! for being prepared (which cuts repair costs and makes hurricanes not such a big deal), Now go hold that lead for the second half.
It gets some things right, but when I read "human choice," I thought there might be some discussion about choosing to build on barrier islands. Silly me — WSJ counseling economic caution?
There is no "hurricane drought." We got to the letter "T" (Tony) this year. That's 20 named storms, Maybe a few of those should not have been named, but that's still historically high. What's different is that they are not coming ashore in the U.S.
Sandy's damage will be closer to $50 billion when the economic losses are counted in. For NJ and NYC, this is far above insurable losses from wrecked homes and businesses. Municipalities will be stuck for decades paying the bill unless they can get state or federal help, and that will drag down the entire economy,
Sandy may or may not be the "new normal" - the circumstances that led to a direct hit on Gotham were rare. But if not NY, then where? Without the atmospheric blocking over the Atlantic, we could today be reading about Providence and Boston. Or next year, maybe Miami or New Orleans.
The writer said that we make our own luck. Building on barrier islands is unlucky.
I don't believe any of those nerds, I will kick their ass. I am stronger, bigger, got all the hot chicks in high school and drive a fancy car. That is my climate change assessment, oh and I like money, lots of it.
"So Paul, Remember that sirdoseph guy?"
"Not really, why?"
"I just found the deed to his property crumpled up in this suit pocket"
"Oh yeah, that was right after we bought everything else he owned and kicked him out. Wonder what happened to him?"
Depends on what you are after. If you are looking at the impact of storms, cost has some merit, but is still hugely dependent on variables that have nothing to do with the scale of the storm itself (population of area impacted, infrastructure in place, local building codes, level of preparedness, etc.). If you are looking at size and power of the storm, it is pretty meaningless - the only way that would have merit is if the storm hit the exact same place twice, and even then it would subject to all kinds of adjustment.
Barometric pressure does tell you something about force. There are lots of other physically measurable characteristics that also can tell us about force. These are the kinds of things we should be looking at to see if things like increased sea temperatures are having an impact on the size and force of storms.
As to the rest of your points, yes there is evidence of all kinds of historical stuff on the planet and we should consider it all. But the vast majority of all peer reviewed science has done that. And they have come to the conclusion that humans are having an impact on the planet. I tend to agree with them. Even where I disagree, I think that our interests are better served by a taking actions that would limit an unknown future threat, than sticking our head in the sand and saying "science nerds suck, nah nah nah" and ignoring what is going on around us.
I don't believe any of those nerds, I will kick their ass. I am stronger, bigger, got all the hot chicks in high school and drive a fancy car. That is my climate change assessment, oh and I like money, lots of it.
Depends on what you are after. If you are looking at the impact of storms, cost has some merit, but is still hugely dependent on variables that have nothing to do with the scale of the storm itself (population of area impacted, infrastructure in place, local building codes, level of preparedness, etc.). If you are looking at size and power of the storm, it is pretty meaningless - the only way that would have merit is if the storm hit the exact same place twice, and even then it would subject to all kinds of adjustment.
Barometric pressure does tell you something about force. There are lots of other physically measurable characteristics that also can tell us about force. These are the kinds of things we should be looking at to see if things like increased sea temperatures are having an impact on the size and force of storms.
As to the rest of your points, yes there is evidence of all kinds of historical stuff on the planet and we should consider it all. But the vast majority of all peer reviewed science has done that. And they have come to the conclusion that humans are having an impact on the planet. I tend to agree with them. Even where I disagree, I think that our interests are better served by a taking actions that would limit an unknown future threat, than sticking our head in the sand and saying "science nerds suck, nah nah nah" and ignoring what is going on around us.
to the board
two things
first, i apologize to anyone who may have looked at that article and thought it to be "insensitive" due to content and/or timing, not my intention and i do sympathize with all the issues (loss of life, property, grief, hardship, etc)
i think pielke brought up a couple of points
what the insurance industry types are thinking and that planning, geography, structures, population, etc. matters (if you build on a floodplain, coastal area, fault line, volcano, etc. expect that eventually you'll see an event)
example: we've learned a lesson here as the insurance codes reflect the high rises on miami beach are steel and concrete and have hurricane resistant glass
second, due to his occupation and connections, he has historically had access to a lot of data
please watch this recent video and you might get some insight into his thoughts
I think that the article made great sense. The title Hurricanes and Human CHOICE was spot on.
Be prepared is excellent advice. Why do you have a problem with measuring events with dollars ? Adjusting for inflation puts things into a proper perspective. A perspective that all can understand at some level. Do you have a better standard for reference ? Pixie Dust ?
So this storm had the lowest barometric pressure ever measured north of North Carolina ? What does that mean ? How long have we been accurately measuring the bp's in the centres of hurricanes ? 60, 70 years ? My, my that's a real long term standard to make harsh judgements of weather ...
I believe that there was a period of time in Earth's history when humans walked across land in what has become the Bering Straight. How much lower was the sea level then ? It rose that much since without the benefit of industrial intervention. I am quite confident that there have been storms with just as low of a bp as Sandy north of North Carolina many times before, but you, nor anyone else were around to document it.
Water is always a focal point of establishing a living centre and trade centre. New Orleans is not where it is by accident. Neither is NYC. Nor San Francisco for that matter. How long had New Orleans been lucky ? And how about NYC ? You say it was invevitable and I would agree. But we agree for different reasons. You say that man caused it via pollution and I say that the law of averages caught up with mans' decision to locate in these places. What about earthquakes in SF ? Is it a bad choice to not move away from SF Bay because of the risk of earthquakes ? Or is it a risk assessment, like everything else, measured in dollars ?
Back before they had names for hurricanes and just spoke of them by year and location, we had the 'cane of 39 hit SoCal and LA particularily hard. When was the last time you heard of or even thought of a hurricane hitting Los Angeles ? It was the reason that the breakwater was built for the Long Beach/Los Angeles Harbour.
A little bit of hometown history about the Hurricane of 1939. The west jetty in the pair is the one that is where the world famous Wedge is located.
Depends on what you are after. If you are looking at the impact of storms, cost has some merit, but is still hugely dependent on variables that have nothing to do with the scale of the storm itself (population of area impacted, infrastructure in place, local building codes, level of preparedness, etc.). If you are looking at size and power of the storm, it is pretty meaningless - the only way that would have merit is if the storm hit the exact same place twice, and even then it would subject to all kinds of adjustment.
Barometric pressure does tell you something about force. There are lots of other physically measurable characteristics that also can tell us about force. These are the kinds of things we should be looking at to see if things like increased sea temperatures are having an impact on the size and force of storms.
As to the rest of your points, yes there is evidence of all kinds of historical stuff on the planet and we should consider it all. But the vast majority of all peer reviewed science has done that. And they have come to the conclusion that humans are having an impact on the planet. I tend to agree with them. Even where I disagree, I think that our interests are better served by a taking actions that would limit an unknown future threat, than sticking our head in the sand and saying "science nerds suck, nah nah nah" and ignoring what is going on around us.
I believe it was Loveluck (Lucklove?) who really pulled the panic lever 20+ years ago regarding global warming that recently said, and I paraphrase, "that he was foolish, cavalier even, to think and/or proffer up that man alone could change nature so radically and so fast" in fact saying that if his initial postulations had come true, we'd be doomed by now,...obviously not so.
That's James Lovelock, who's been a "independent" fringe scientist/"futurologist" for most of his career. A physicist and father of the so-called Gaia hypothesis that claims the world is a self-regulating single organism/system. It's loved by new age hippies, but has very little credence among scientists in fields like ecology or climate scientists. And yes, he's made ridiculous prognoses in the past, and he's still making them. What's relevant is that he's not a climate scientist and doesn't even follow up-to-date science. If that's your poster boy for climate change denial, good luck!
Or are we so smart a civilization that we can take 100+ years of documented weather and be so smug to try to second guess what's happened in that time and juxtapose it against what has happened weather-wise the previous xyz million years?!
Some of the people in our civilization are indeed smart enough, without needing to be smug about it. That's for instance where paleo-climatologists come in, who are able to infer ancient climates like previous ice ages, etc. from evidence that's left behind all over Earth.
You're making a similar argument like Ken Ham, a well-known fundamentalist creationist (Kentucky Creation Museum), who likes to deny evolution by asking "Were you there?" whenever claims are made about how certain animals evolved from one species into others. Jokers like him like to say that he's never seen a monkey change into human in his lifetime or of all recorded history. Fortunately we don't have to be 'there' or rely on very recent documented history because we are able to infer facts from the available evidence, like in the case of evolution from fossils, radiometric dating and genetics among other things. The same is true for reconstructing older climates by looking at layers of rocks, deposits, ice cores, etc.
A well-known example of inference is if you would come across flattened road kill with a painted stripe over it on some road. You don't have to have been there to infer that the animal was on the road before some construction vehicle drove over it and (re)painted the lines on the road, as well as the animal. We infer all the time from evidence, whether it's about recent events or further back in time. See meteor impacts, the folding of rock layers, the shifting of continents, the creation of huge canyons, etc., etc.
You may reject science as much as you want by appealing to smugness, etc., but it doesn't change the facts on (or in) the ground.
PS: Science does change/self-corrects itself continuously as new evidence becomes available, so predictions in some fields are more tentative than others. It's a given.
I think that the article made great sense. The title Hurricanes and Human CHOICE was spot on.
Be prepared is excellent advice. Why do you have a problem with measuring events with dollars ? Adjusting for inflation puts things into a proper perspective. A perspective that all can understand at some level. Do you have a better standard for reference ? Pixie Dust ?
So this storm had the lowest barometric pressure ever measured north of North Carolina ? What does that mean ? How long have we been accurately measuring the bp's in the centres of hurricanes ? 60, 70 years ? My, my that's a real long term standard to make harsh judgements of weather ...
I believe that there was a period of time in Earth's history when humans walked across land in what has become the Bering Straight. How much lower was the sea level then ? It rose that much since without the benefit of industrial intervention. I am quite confident that there have been storms with just as low of a bp as Sandy north of North Carolina many times before, but you, nor anyone else were around to document it.
Water is always a focal point of establishing a living centre and trade centre. New Orleans is not where it is by accident. Neither is NYC. Nor San Francisco for that matter. How long had New Orleans been lucky ? And how about NYC ? You say it was invevitable and I would agree. But we agree for different reasons. You say that man caused it via pollution and I say that the law of averages caught up with mans' decision to locate in these places. What about earthquakes in SF ? Is it a bad choice to not move away from SF Bay because of the risk of earthquakes ? Or is it a risk assessment, like everything else, measured in dollars ?
Back before they had names for hurricanes and just spoke of them by year and location, we had the 'cane of 39 hit SoCal and LA particularily hard. When was the last time you heard of or even thought of a hurricane hitting Los Angeles ? It was the reason that the breakwater was built for the Long Beach/Los Angeles Harbour.
A little bit of hometown history about the Hurricane of 1939. The west jetty in the pair is the one that is where the world famous Wedge is located.
Spot on commentary Kurt! IMHO we've been waiting since Ivan for another reason to wag our finger at global warming/climate change to scream about hurricanes again; they've always been with us, and always will be. I still recall after both Katrina and Ivan that we were assured, promised even, that those two storms were shapes of things to come....all in all it's been pretty calm since both of them, certainly not worse than those who live in the affected region(s) have ever come to expect. And now, 20 years after Andrew we've had an "Andrew + 1" event, 2 colliding storms that packed an extra punch,... horrible, sad, devastating but again, storms have arrived from the Atlantic on these shores since white-faced scribes have been here to record them.
I believe it was Loveluck (Lucklove?) who really pulled the panic lever 20+ years ago regarding global warming that recently said, and I paraphrase, "that he was foolish, cavalier even, to think and/or proffer up that man alone could change nature so radically and so fast" in fact saying that if his initial postulations had come true, we'd be doomed by now,...obviously not so.
The last storm that held a candle to Katrina was when?!,...'46? '47? Did global warming cause that? Or are we so smart a civilization that we can take 100+ years of documented weather and be so smug to try to second guess what's happened in that time and juxtapose it against what has happened weather-wise the previous xyz million years?!
This article is crap. To paraphrase: this storm was the biggest by physical attributes. Others have cost more when adjusted for inflation. We should measure based on cost vs. physical parameters, so hurricanes that don't hit big cities won't really count. It's our own fault for putting cities where hurricanes will hit them. Yay! for being prepared (which cuts repair costs and makes hurricanes not such a big deal), Now go hold that lead for the second half.
According to this we should just all move where nothing bad happens. Problem solved. Thanks WSJ, let me know when the real reporters get back in the office.
I think that the article made great sense. The title Hurricanes and Human CHOICE was spot on.
Be prepared is excellent advice. Why do you have a problem with measuring events with dollars ? Adjusting for inflation puts things into a proper perspective. A perspective that all can understand at some level. Do you have a better standard for reference ? Pixie Dust ?
So this storm had the lowest barometric pressure ever measured north of North Carolina ? What does that mean ? How long have we been accurately measuring the bp's in the centres of hurricanes ? 60, 70 years ? My, my that's a real long term standard to make harsh judgements of weather ...
I believe that there was a period of time in Earth's history when humans walked across land in what has become the Bering Straight. How much lower was the sea level then ? It rose that much since without the benefit of industrial intervention. I am quite confident that there have been storms with just as low of a bp as Sandy north of North Carolina many times before, but you, nor anyone else were around to document it.
Water is always a focal point of establishing a living centre and trade centre. New Orleans is not where it is by accident. Neither is NYC. Nor San Francisco for that matter. How long had New Orleans been lucky ? And how about NYC ? You say it was invevitable and I would agree. But we agree for different reasons. You say that man caused it via pollution and I say that the law of averages caught up with mans' decision to locate in these places. What about earthquakes in SF ? Is it a bad choice to not move away from SF Bay because of the risk of earthquakes ? Or is it a risk assessment, like everything else, measured in dollars ?
Back before they had names for hurricanes and just spoke of them by year and location, we had the 'cane of 39 hit SoCal and LA particularily hard. When was the last time you heard of or even thought of a hurricane hitting Los Angeles ? It was the reason that the breakwater was built for the Long Beach/Los Angeles Harbour.
A little bit of hometown history about the Hurricane of 1939. The west jetty in the pair is the one that is where the world famous Wedge is located.
Hurricane Sandy left in its path some impressive statistics. Its central pressure was the lowest ever recorded for a storm north of North Carolina, breaking a record set by the devastating "Long Island Express" hurricane of 1938. Along the East Coast, Sandy led to more than 50 deaths, left millions without power and caused an estimated $20 billion or more in damage.
But to call Sandy a harbinger of a "new normal," in which unprecedented weather events cause unprecedented destruction, would be wrong. This historic storm should remind us that planet Earth is a dangerous place, where extreme events are commonplace and disasters are to be expected. In the proper context, Sandy is less an example of how bad things can get than a reminder that they could be much worse.
In studying hurricanes, we can make rough comparisons over time by adjusting past losses to account for inflation and the growth of coastal communities. If Sandy causes $20 billion in damage (in 2012 dollars), it would rank as the 17th most damaging hurricane or tropical storm (out of 242) to hit the U.S. since 1900—a significant event, but not close to the top 10.The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 tops the list (according to estimates by the catastrophe-insurance provider ICAT), as it would cause $180 billion in damage if it were to strike today. Hurricane Katrina ranks fourth at $85 billion.
Carol, Hazel and Diane—that in 2012 each would have caused about twice as much damage as Sandy.
While it's hardly mentioned in the media, the U.S. is currently in an extended and intense hurricane "drought." The last Category 3 or stronger storm to make landfall was Wilma in 2005. The more than seven years since then is the longest such span in over a century.
Flood damage has decreased as a proportion of the economy since reliable records were first kept by the National Weather Service in the 1930s, and there is no evidence of increasing extreme river floods. Historic tornado damage (adjusted for changing levels of development) has decreased since 1950, paralleling a dramatic reduction in casualties. Although the tragic impacts of tornadoes in 2011 (including 553 confirmed deaths) were comparable only to those of 1953 and 1964, such tornado impacts were far more common in the first half of the 20th century.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that drought in America's central plains has decreased in recent decades. And even when extensive drought occurs, we fare better. For example, the widespread 2012 drought was about 10% as costly to the U.S. economy as the multiyear 1988-89 drought, indicating greater resiliency of American agriculture.
There is therefore reason to believe we are living in an extended period of relatively good fortune with respect to disasters. A recurrence of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake today, for example, could cause more than $300 billion in damage and thousands of lives, according to a study I co-published in 2009.
So how can today's disasters, even if less physically powerful than previous ones, have such staggering financial costs? One reason: There are more people and more wealth in harm's way. Partly this is due to local land-use policies, partly to incentives such as government-subsidized insurance, but mostly to the simple fact that people like being on the coast and near rivers.
Even so, with respect to disasters we really do make our own luck. The relatively low number of casualties caused by Sandy is a testament to the success story that is the U.S. National Weather Service and parallel efforts of those who emphasize preparedness and emergency response in the public and private sectors. Everyone in the disaster-management community deserves thanks; the mitigation of the impacts from natural disasters has been a true national success story of the past century.
But continued success isn't guaranteed. The bungled response and tragic consequences associated with Hurricane Katrina tell us what can happen when we let our guard down.
This article is crap. To paraphrase: this storm was the biggest by physical attributes. Others have cost more when adjusted for inflation. We should measure based on cost vs. physical parameters, so hurricanes that don't hit big cities won't really count. It's our own fault for putting cities where hurricanes will hit them. Yay! for being prepared (which cuts repair costs and makes hurricanes not such a big deal), Now go hold that lead for the second half.
According to this we should just all move where nothing bad happens. Problem solved. Thanks WSJ, let me know when the real reporters get back in the office.
Whether the characteristics of tropical cyclones have changed or will change in a warming climate — and if so, how — has been the subject of considerable investigation, often with conflicting results. Large amplitude fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones greatly complicate both the detection of long-term trends and their attribution to rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Trend detection is further impeded by substantial limitations in the availability and quality of global historical records of tropical cyclones. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether past changes in tropical cyclone activity have exceeded the variability expected from natural causes. However, future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2–11% by 2100. Existing modelling studies also consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6–34%. Balanced against this, higher resolution modelling studies typically project substantial increases in the frequency of the most intense cyclones, and increases of the order of 20% in the precipitation rate within 100 km of the storm centre. For all cyclone parameters, projected changes for individual basins show large variations between different modelling studies.
Also from Pielke below:
Humans do affect the climate system, and it is indeed important to take action on energy policy—but to connect energy policy and disasters makes little scientific or policy sense.
The interesting aspect is the contrast between a policy of not wanting (the government) to impede business w.r.t. energy and pollution due to concerns for competitiveness (read costs), and having (government) to mitigate problems (including costs, which are also affecting business and competitiveness) arising from the results of the former policy. Short term competitiveness vs. long-term expensive structural damage.
Hurricane Sandy left in its path some impressive statistics. Its central pressure was the lowest ever recorded for a storm north of North Carolina, breaking a record set by the devastating "Long Island Express" hurricane of 1938. Along the East Coast, Sandy led to more than 50 deaths, left millions without power and caused an estimated $20 billion or more in damage.
But to call Sandy a harbinger of a "new normal," in which unprecedented weather events cause unprecedented destruction, would be wrong. This historic storm should remind us that planet Earth is a dangerous place, where extreme events are commonplace and disasters are to be expected. In the proper context, Sandy is less an example of how bad things can get than a reminder that they could be much worse.
In studying hurricanes, we can make rough comparisons over time by adjusting past losses to account for inflation and the growth of coastal communities. If Sandy causes $20 billion in damage (in 2012 dollars), it would rank as the 17th most damaging hurricane or tropical storm (out of 242) to hit the U.S. since 1900—a significant event, but not close to the top 10. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 tops the list (according to estimates by the catastrophe-insurance provider ICAT), as it would cause $180 billion in damage if it were to strike today. Hurricane Katrina ranks fourth at $85 billion.
A worker pushes water toward a storm drain on Wall Street as the city tries to recover from the effects of Hurricane Sandy in New York on Wednesday.
To put things into even starker perspective, consider that from August 1954 through August 1955, the East Coast saw three different storms make landfall—Carol, Hazel and Diane—that in 2012 each would have caused about twice as much damage as Sandy.
While it's hardly mentioned in the media, the U.S. is currently in an extended and intense hurricane "drought." The last Category 3 or stronger storm to make landfall was Wilma in 2005. The more than seven years since then is the longest such span in over a century.
Flood damage has decreased as a proportion of the economy since reliable records were first kept by the National Weather Service in the 1930s, and there is no evidence of increasing extreme river floods. Historic tornado damage (adjusted for changing levels of development) has decreased since 1950, paralleling a dramatic reduction in casualties. Although the tragic impacts of tornadoes in 2011 (including 553 confirmed deaths) were comparable only to those of 1953 and 1964, such tornado impacts were far more common in the first half of the 20th century.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that drought in America's central plains has decreased in recent decades. And even when extensive drought occurs, we fare better. For example, the widespread 2012 drought was about 10% as costly to the U.S. economy as the multiyear 1988-89 drought, indicating greater resiliency of American agriculture.
There is therefore reason to believe we are living in an extended period of relatively good fortune with respect to disasters. A recurrence of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake today, for example, could cause more than $300 billion in damage and thousands of lives, according to a study I co-published in 2009.
So how can today's disasters, even if less physically powerful than previous ones, have such staggering financial costs? One reason: There are more people and more wealth in harm's way. Partly this is due to local land-use policies, partly to incentives such as government-subsidized insurance, but mostly to the simple fact that people like being on the coast and near rivers.
Even so, with respect to disasters we really do make our own luck. The relatively low number of casualties caused by Sandy is a testament to the success story that is the U.S. National Weather Service and parallel efforts of those who emphasize preparedness and emergency response in the public and private sectors. Everyone in the disaster-management community deserves thanks; the mitigation of the impacts from natural disasters has been a true national success story of the past century.
But continued success isn't guaranteed. The bungled response and tragic consequences associated with Hurricane Katrina tell us what can happen when we let our guard down.
