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buried most of several towns, and others disappeared completely under avalanches of mud. Many poor communities were completely wiped out. These households had few protective livelihood assets with which to offset the effects of their physical exposure: low physical capital (rickety shacks with limited access to infrastructure, such as roads), lack of financial capital (many were poor, possibly illegal migrants), insufficient natural capital (because of the urban setting), limited human capital (making livelihood diversification strategies difficult), low political capital (limited capacity to claim access to basic services on a routine basis or to claim emergency assistance, for lack of state attention and protection), and a stock of social capital too small to protect against such a large covariate shock as this flood. The policy challenge in improving resilience to natural hazards is that until disaster strikes, vulnerable groups may not appreciate the importance of resilience and even if they are aware of which natural hazards might threaten them, they will not necessarily recognize how to change their asset use to improve their resilience. People living in complete destitution are forced to focus on the assets required for day-to-day survival, but those are typically not the type of assets needed for surviving a crisis. In addition, climate disasters often alter livelihood assets so much that capital accumulated for the former everyday context is rendered useless. Thus the resources invested in strengthening livelihood resilience to natural disasters are likely to be less than optimal. The same holds true for social investments. As mentioned earlier, bonding social capital plays a vital role for many poor people’s livelihoods, as a protection against shocks such as job loss, disease, or a sudden need for credit. But in the wake of large covariate disasters, when entire communities have been shattered, other types of social capital take center stage. Bridging social capital—in this case more distant, cross-cutting connections to people with limited exposure to the disaster—as well as linking social capital—here understood as hierarchical linkages with state agencies capable of implementing disaster mitigation measures or providing emergency relief—become crucial parts of adaptation, resilience, and coping strategies. Social resilience can be strengthened by the institutional and social memory that is present in societies that face natural hazards frequently (Adger and others 2005). Other things equal, households with more experience of managing disasters are less vulnerable than households with less experience. Social memory draws on reservoirs of practices, knowledge, values, and worldviews from individuals, communities, and institutions.