The Unthinkable is the thinking person's manual for getting out alive. ”
NPR, National Public Radio
“Engrossing and lucid … An absorbing study of the psychology and physiology of panic, heroism, and trauma … Facing the truth about the human capacity for risk and disaster turns out to be a lot less scary than staying in the dark.”
I watched all the Chile “looting” footage I could find yesterday. It was hard to know what I was looking at, as it always is when you are watching disasters from afar--and often even when you are right there. I mostly saw people carrying water, diapers, sacks of flour and other necessities. I saw young men playing Robin Hood, throwing paper towels and toilet paper rolls from storefront balconies to older women waiting, arms uplifted, below.
So let me first say that I wouldn’t want to be head of homeland security and emergency management for the city of Washington, DC. It’s an incredibly hard job, and not just because it means protecting a city that is a terrorist’s fantasy land. The thing that makes it hardest of all is the fact that it is home to at least two dozen competing law enforcement agencies, many of which don’t really like each other very much.
In any city, getting police and firefighters (or the FBI and the CIA) to get along before, during and after…
Check out this quote from today’s Wall Street Journal story about the painful teacher layoffs occurring around the country due to budget shortfalls. Let me know if you see anything strange about it. Mr. Bafia is defending the seniority system, which is used in most school districts to determine who gets let go. Last hired, first fired, in other words. As opposed to an alternative, which NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and others have proposed--which is to consider teachers’ performance as one relevant factor when figuring out whom to let go (another way of saying, hey, this…
Disaster after disaster has shown that regular citizens are the first-responders, so it’s nice to see federal reports acknowledging this reality. The recently released, first-ever Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report places a much-needed emphasis on a resilient and psychologically prepared public:
“Despite our best efforts, some attacks, accidents, and disasters will occur. Therefore, the challenge is to foster a society that is robust, adaptable, and has the capacity for rapid recovery. In this context, individuals, families, and communities—and the systems that sustain them—must be informed, trained, and materially and psychologically prepared to…
Amanda Ripley, a longtime TIME Magazine contributor, has traveled the world studying disasters, natural and manmade. Her book, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes — and Why, is the first major book to explain how the brain works in disasters — and how we can learn to do better. It is being published in 15 countries.
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