Disaster Resilience: Living with our Environment Chapter 13 Answer Key
Identify a sense of community and social linkages
Understand what people need and want to know
Emphasize the benefits of personal actions rather than risk alone
Lead people to consider helping those more vulnerable than themselves
Start with small actions that are easy to adopt
Connect probabilities and data to people’s lives.
22. The time immediately following a natural disaster may provide a community with a unique window of opportunity for inserting an ethic of resilience in guiding development and redevelopment in high-risk areas. With forethought and planning, communities that are rebuilt in the aftermath of a natural hazard can be built back so that they are more resilient to future hazards, breaking the cycle of hazard-destruction-rebuilding. At the same time, the community is given the opportunity to incorporate other attributes of sustainability into its second chance development, such as energy efficiency, affordable housing, walkable neighborhoods, use of recycled building materials, reduction of water use, and environmental protection.
Some of the changes that occur in the routine business of a community after a disaster include:
Hazard awareness increases: immediately following a disaster event, people become personally aware of the hazards that can beset the community and the extent of the impact. In other words, suddenly it becomes real.
Destruction occurs: In some cases, the disasters will have done some of the work already. For example, a tornado, earthquake, or fire may have damaged or destroyed aging, dilapidated, or unsafe buildings or infrastructure.
Community involvement increases: A disaster forces a community to make decisions, both hard and easy. Community involvement and citizen participation in policy formation often increase after a disaster.
Building a Culture of Prevention
Page 2 of 3