In Rational Accidents: Reckoning with Catastrophic Technologies (MIT, 2023), John Downer analyzes what he calls "catastrophic technologies." The political or economic viability of these high hazard technologies depends on achieving ultrahigh levels of reliability. The core idea of the book is what Downer calls "rational accidents," which differ in important respects from Perrow's well known argument about "normal accidents." His analysis focuses on what he calls the "aviation paradox." While the complexity of technologies (like jetliners) should be expected to prevent experts from fully understanding them, the paradox is they do under certain conditions achieve ultrahigh levels of reliability. Downer's answer to this paradox is that "experts have slowly whittled their understanding of jetliners over time, assiduously interrogating failures to hone a common, stable, airframe design-paradigm to extreme levels of reliability." However, achieving this level of reliability depends on adherence to a "common and stable design paradigm," which in turn depends on the incentives that organizations, industries and regulators face. The book offers a fresh perspective on the reliability and limits to reliability of high hazard technologies.
The themes of this edited volume will be familiar to those who study wildfire and crisis management, but the focus of the volume is specific: wildfire fatalities. Chapters investigate the conditions that make wildfires fatal (chapter 2 and 3), critical preparations for preventing fatalities (chapter 3), the nature of fatalities (chapters 9 and 10), post-fire search and rescue and recovery (chapters 11-13), post-fire medical operations (chapters 15, 16), victim identification (chapters 18 and 19 ), invesgations (chapter 8 and 17), victim demography (chapters 20 and 21), and the psychological responses of first responders to fatalities (chapter 22). Chapters also investigate the efficacy of incident command systems, with interesting insights into how ICS functioned during the Camp and the CZU Lightning Complex Fires in California (chapter 4 and 6) and in California more generally (chapter 7). Finally, the volume provides a useful international perspective (chapter 3), reviewing firefighter and civilian fatalities from wildfires around the world (chapter 3) and examining how ICS systems function in different countries (chapter 5). Overall, the volume provides a very comprehensive overview of the issue of wildfire fatalities and how they managed and reduced through preparation and organization.
What happens when a lawyer and a communications consultant team up to write a book about corporate crisis management? In Collaborative Crisis Management (University of Chicago Press, 2022), Thomas Cole and Paul Verbinnen argue that the overarching strategy is to "prepare, execute, recover and repeat" Preparation calls for firms to reflect on fundamental questions about the kinds of risks they might face and how prepared they are to meet these risks. Once a crisis strikes, execution require ensuring that the right teams take the lead and that issues of accountability and oversight are quickly resolved. Recovery calls for a "root cause" analysis of the crisis and its management, with a focus on reputation management. Finally, to repeat means to draw lessons from the crisis for the next possible crisis, which is nevertheless likely to be sui generis. A distinctive feature of this book is the focus on the fiduciary and legal aspects of corporate crisis management.
Stefania Ravassia analyzes how improvisation during the Covid-19 pandemic increased the robustness of Italian emergency management. The book identifies a series of emotional, cognitive and relational dynamics that contribute to effective improvisation and to robust emergency response. A key emotional dynamic is Eustress, which is the pressure to perform balanced by confidence and tolerance of ambiguity. Important cognitive dynamics include a focus on the present and a practical use of prior knowledge. Relational dyamics include willingness to share leadership, an orientation toward building on other's decisions and actions (Yes-anding), and offering and obtaining rapid feedback on performance. The book significantly advances our understanding of how improvisation can the robustness of emergency response.
This Rand Report investigation how cities deal with water security in five international cities: Cape Town, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia; São Paulo, Brazil; and Las Vegas, Nevada, and New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States. All five cities face significant drought risks and problems with existing water infrastructure. The report draws five key lessons from these case studies, which include the importance of 1) planning and investing proactively; 2) building capacity for taking a systems approach; 3) strengthening intergovernmental collaboration; 4) embracing innovation; and 5) building trust and effective communication.
This edited volume investigates the theory and practice of risk communication during catastrophic events. The introductory essay points out that there are a variety of theories of risk communication, but scant evidence that practitioners actually draw on these theories in developing communication strategies. Individual chapters cover both a range of theoretical perspective, including innoculation theory, social marketing theory and situational crisis communication theory. The chapters also analyze a number of specific crisis events, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2016 Pulse night club shooting, a 2013 meningitis B outbreak, and a catastrophic mudslide in Uganda. The book provides a useful introduction to current discussions about risk communication during catastrophic events