Hazards

Abstract

In August of 1992, Hurricane Andrew battered south-eastern Florida, causing fifty-eight deaths, and more than $27 billion in property losses (National Climatic Data Center 1999). The following year, widespread flooding occurred within the Upper Mississippi River basin, inundating 5.3 million hectares during the worst flood to affect much of the region in this century. The Northridge earthquake (magnitude 6.7) led to sixty-one deaths and more than $20 billion in property damage and loss in 1994. A year later, Kobe, Japan, experienced a magnitude 6.9 earthquake. Despite massive efforts to prepare for such events, more than 6,000 lives were lost, and $150–200 billion in property damage was experienced. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch devastated Honduras, Nicaragua, and other parts of Central America. More than 5,600 people died in Honduras alone and approximately 70,000 homes were damaged. In Nicaragua, more than 850,000 people were affected, with approximately 2,860 deaths. Estimates of losses in agriculture, housing, transportation and other infrastructure are in excess of $1.3 billion dollars (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1998). These are just a few, albeit particularly devastating, events that continued to focus our attention in the 1990s on hazards and disasters. The widespread news media coverage of these disaster events provided a backdrop for fictional portrayals as Hollywood rediscovered the disaster movie genre. With enhanced special effects and big-named stars, popular films such as Twister, Volcano, Dante’s Peak, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Titanic, and A Civil Action added a different slant to the media coverage of disasters and the public’s perception of hazards throughout the decade. The public’s interest and fascination in actual disasters also propelled several books to the bestseller list (Barry 1997; Junger 1997; Larson 1999). Both the fictional representations and the consequences of real disasters illustrate the shift in our understanding of the forces at work in such events. Some of the damage in Hurricane Andrew, for example, is attributed to inadequate enforcement of building standards. In Kobe, structures engineered to withstand seismic activity failed, prompting concern about just how safe infrastructure is in tectonically active areas. And Hurricane Mitch’s devastating toll cannot be explained solely by the storm. Decades of land abuse and a combination of social, political, and economic factors combined with the storm to cause the severe losses.