Disasterology by Dr Samantha Montano
Dr Montano calls herself a Disasterologist to get across what she does better than the traditional title of Emergency Manager. The book details her journey from a naive teenager who set out to help with the recovery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to an academic who points out that ‘disasters happen by design’. Every decision to build on a flood plain, not to invest in flood defences or emergency planning is a choice which makes disaster more likely at some point in the future.
This extract from the book seems pertinent to the current situation in West Northamptonshire:
We are now living in the future scientists have warned us of my entire life. We did not stop climate change and now we have to figure out how to live in our new climate. We need to make a plan for how we will manage the consequences. There is much we can do to minimize the impact, but doing so requires us to simultaneously build the capacity of the emergency management system while dismantling the inequality within it, all while our risk increases.
We need to aggressively hold accountable the people and organisations who are in positions to shape these conversations. If you do not like the way mitigation or recovery is unfolding in your community, you have to be the one to change it…there is no one coming to save you. We have to save ourselves.
Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis
Part activist memoir, part climate change primer, DISASTEROLOGY is a passionate and personal analysis of a country in crisis—one woefully unprepared to deal with the disasters of today and those looming in our future, and the big and small steps we must take to make a difference. For Dr. Samantha M
Harlequin