Learning from Catastrophes: Strategies for Reaction and Response

Preface

According to the 2008 World Disasters Report, natural calamities in 2007 affected more than 200 million people. Their direct cost in 2007 totaled more than $60 billion; the financial impact of the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 alone has been estimated to exceed $70 billion. The cost of the 2008–09 global financial crisis reached hundreds of billions of dollars in many countries. A widespread outbreak of swine flu could wreak havoc on a comparable scale.

This book offers critical lessons for those who are most responsible for avoiding the worst, whether natural calamities or unnatural catastrophes ranging from financial crises to terrorist attacks.

All are low-probability but high-consequence events. By examining what worked and what did ...