Pitt Faculty Expert Says U.S. Preparedness For Managing Natural Hazards Has Suffered Since Nation's Focus Shifted to Terrorism

PITTSBURGH-Louise Comfort, professor of public and urban affairs in Pitt's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, can speak analytically of the fires ravaging California, and also personally, as she lost her home to California's Oakland Hills Fire on Oct. 20, 1991.

In Southern California, the Santa Ana winds blow hot, dry air from the desert toward the ocean, Comfort explains. The smallest spark can cause the canyons of the coastal mountains and the wildlands near the cities to explode in flames.

"California had a once-proud system of emergency response, with some of the best trained firefighters in the nation," says Comfort. "But the Standardized Emergency Management System, adopted by the state after the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire, requires continual training and updating of equipment and databases. Preparedness for managing natural hazards in California has been under-funded in recent years, as the focus of the Department of Homeland Security has shifted to terrorism."

"These fires are the kind of shared risk that requires local, state, and federal cooperation for immediate, informed response," says Comfort. "The news reports indicate that intergovernmental cooperation has been significantly better for the fires in California than the failed response to Hurricane Katrina. This is partly because there is a larger and better trained local emergency response system, but also because the state and federal agencies recognized the need for action and did not want to fail again. Yet, we are far from achieving the kind of sustainable risk management that is essential in high-risk areas like California."

Comfort is the director of Pitt's Interactive, Intelligent, Spatial Information System (IISIS) Project, which helps community leaders manage risk during disasters and better link communities together when public safety is at risk. Comfort is the author of numerous articles on disaster response management, including, "Communication, Coherence, and Collective Action: The Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Communications Infrastructure," "Public Works Management and Policy", 2006; "Cities at Risk: Hurricane Katrina and the Drowning of New Orleans," "Urban Affairs Review," 2006; and "Inter-organizational Coordination in Extreme Events: The World Trade Center Attacks, September 11, 2001," "Natural Hazards," 2006.

###

10/24/07/tmw