Risk By Numbers: Are Measurements Really Important?
REQUIRED REFERENCE:
Broder, J. F., & Tucker, E. (2012). Risk analysis and the security survey (4th ed.). Waltham, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN: 978-0-12-382233-8
Read
Risk Analysis and the Security Survey, Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9
Multi Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment a Cornerstone of National Mitigation Strategy, Chapters 24 and 25, and review the Introduction
Directions: Read the scenario below and answer the questions.
Scenario: For the purposes of this question, you are an independent contractor who specializes in helping municipalities quantify and prioritize loss potential on large governmental structures when faced with the potential for a severe weather event, such as a flood, hurricane, or tornado. In this case, you’ve been asked by your local City Manager to evaluate the security of your largest structure or complex and to provide security recommendations based on your analysis. It may be a stadium, a water plant, an open reservoir, or even an emergency operations center. You pick the facility in your area (ATLANTA, GA) and you pick the weather event for your area.
Question:
Using the Decision Matrix in Chapter 4 of your text, provide a brief descriptive summary of the principal challenges facing disaster preparedness officials in your area, in trying to effectively predict and measure the relative risk of potential damage from whatever weather event you have chosen. Make certain you adequately describe the environment (urban, rural, suburban, etc.) and that you include the specific risk in the real day-to-day environment. (Note the examples given on pages 31 and 32 in your text.)
How Can We Predict Catastrophes or Reduce Devastation?
Given the technology available today, it would appear that we can effectively monitor ongoing changes on the planet Earth. Due to the expansion of the Internet coupled with new advances in technology development, many opportunities seem to exist for anyone to get real-time information from reliable government sources about conditions on Earth and in our atmosphere. If we have the ability to monitor such threats to our safety using seismometers, satellite imagery, and other advanced systems to identify and track such events as hurricanes, tornadoes, seismic activity, and sea conditions, what can we do to improve the overall risk assessment process to prevent or mitigate such disasters? Since 2000, more than twenty weather-related catastrophes have occurred, devastating such countries as Haiti, Indonesia, China, and the United States, to name only a few. Are there particular hazards over which we have no control as to predictability, or to which we cannot reduce vulnerability? If so, what are they? If not, why haven’t we?
