E. L. Quarantelli’s research while affiliated with University of Delaware and other places

This volume has a double focus. One is on the vulnerability of urban areas in developing countries to disasters, especially those associated with natural and technological factors. The other is on the new strategies and on the better application of valid planning and managing principles that ought to be used to cope with disasters. As such, those officials active in disaster planning and managing are visualized as prime users of this work. However, readers also in research aspects might also be interested. The latter in particular might want to look at a paper developed at the same time as the initial draft of this volume, which focuses on conceptual and statistical problems involved in study disaster phenomena (Quarantelli 2001a).

Much is known, from systematic social science research done over the last 50 years, about the role and activity of the mass communication system (MCS) in natural and technological disasters. Among other things, studies have shown, first, that the MCS is a subworld of its own (with distinctive norms, values and beliefs not shared with the larger society), and second, that this system does not simply mirror or reflect the world. However, the greatest specific knowledge exists about local community MCS. We summarize a dozen generalizations about the local reporting of disaster news, and then ask the question: to what extent would they be operative in the MCS approach to terrorism? It seems that there would be both similarities and differences, which have to be taken into account in any kind of crisis planning.

Between its formation in 1963 and until 1989, the Disaster Research Center (DRC) conducted more than 450 field studies of community crises, the great bulk of them involving natural or technological disaster agents. The major focus was on organized behavior whether informal organizations or informal and emergent groups, and usually about the social entities involved in the preparedness and response activities in the crisis. After noting the background context within which the center operated, this paper summarizes the general methodological approach taken in the work. It depicts the substantial attention DRC paid to the prefield training that was given to the graduate students who did most of the field work. Also described are the in-field procedures followed, particularly the open-ended type of interviewing conducted, the kinds of participant observations made, and the systematic document collecting that was done. Finally, we note certain postfield procedures systematized by the center to measure the quantity and to insure the quality of the data gathered.

The area of disaster studies is plagued by dubious statistical data and widespread conceptual disagreements. This is the major focus of discussion in the paper. We detail the limitations in much of the numerical data that are both specifically and generally used in discussions of disasters. Factors that are responsible for this, including inadequate conceptualizations about disasters are discussed. We also show that there is not much consensus by researchers and others about many of the most central concepts used such as “disaster”, “hazards,” “risk,” etc. In our call for more reliable statistics and more relevant concepts, we provide examples and suggestions of how this could be done.

We know that the future is never the past or the present exactly repeated. Nevertheless, whatever social phenomena evolve over time, in whatever form they may present themselves, they do not come out of a void, suddenly appearing. The evolution is always rooted in past and present conditions. This is true of social crises. We can grant that many crises which have been projected to appear in the 21st Century by many scholars and researchers as well as our self, wilt, differ in significant ways from those the world faced in the Century (for examples, see many of the articles in this very volume in which this paper will appear; see also, Quarantelli 1996, 19%). They will be different in important aspects from past and present crises. Nevertheless, those newer crises that are starting to appear in fuller and fuller form, can be seen to have predecessors of some kind in the past and in the present. There is not and could not be a sudden transformation of the characteristics of older crises into the features of the newer social crises.

Contempla: aspectos teóricos e metodólogicos referentes às causas de acidentes industriais ampliados numa abordagem interdisciplinar; cenários em que estes se dão e mudanças possíveis a partir de sua ocorrência, tendo como referência casos de eventos passados e situações críticas presentes; planejamento de emergências e critérios para a gestão de desastres; estratégias institucionais de controle e prevenção. A obra se espraia pela multiplicidade de olhares de vinte especialistas, brasileiros e estrangeiros, de várias instituições e formações, que, em 13 capítulos, garantem ao leitor um panorama abrangente e atual sobre tema tão pouco explorado, mas tão importante para a preservação da vida.

This article discusses how societies and their subdivisions (particularly at the community level) organize themselves for protection against and response to disasters and related collective crises of a peacetime nature. Complicating our presentation is that there is not much agreement even on the label designating these social arrangements. While "civil protection" is a term widely used in Europe, in many other countries around the world, the organized efforts to cope with collective threats are called "emergency management" or "disaster planning." There is a substantial but not complete overlap in referent among these three terms. Also, we will specifically examine the relationship between the phenomena called "civil protection" and "civil defense," the last being a term first applied to nonmilitary preparations for civilian involvement in wartime situations.

We are now in terms of world history in a time period of very rapid change. The social landscape and features of the 21st Century will be noticeably different from that in which we have lived much of this Century. The most important structures and activities of human life are drastically changing (Smelser 1991). Massive social changes are happening in the political, economic, familial, cultural, educational and scientific areas. For example, there are basic alterations occurring in the role and status of women along with the emergence of new family and household patterns, the growing diffusion and expanding use of applied social science to many areas of life, the globalization of popular culture, and the spread of at least nominal democratic patterns of government. These and the other changes will markedly affect the number and kinds of future disasters and also the planning and managing of them (Quarantelli 1996).

An information/communication revolution is being brought about by recent developments and innovations in computer and related technologies. Recognizes that many of the consequences will be very positive for all aspects of social life, but focuses on probable and possible negative effects of the currently accelerating cyberspace revolution. Discusses ten problematical aspects for disaster planning, management and research ranging, for example, from the creation of a new kind of disaster - computer-related system failures - and the increased difficulties that will be generated for intra- and inter-organizational communication and co-ordination, to the problems that will come from an inevitable information overload and the diffusion of inappropriate or incorrect disaster relevant “facts” and “ideas”.