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Featured Publication

The Human Side of Disaster
by Thomas Drabek
CRC Press
ISBN: 9781439808641

Drabek scientifically evaluates human responses to disasters, informing emergency managers and response teams and teaching them how to anticipate human behavior in a crisis.

This book contains four scenarios—based on interviews and real events—that introduce the human side of disaster and examine how preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation affect outcomes. Chapters provide insight that can be applied to events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and floods, as well as man-made threats—including industrial accidents and acts of terrorism.

The book demonstrates how traditional warning methods and high-tech systems can work together to improve communication, evacuation, and reconstruction. The human element in disasters is highlighted, as well as how to use that element as part of a planned disaster response.

Natural Hazards Center Library

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Katrina Resource Page

The Center created a Web page that compiles a list of useful resources examining the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The Natural Hazards Center Library at the University of Colorado houses one of the most unique collections of social science literature in the world. The library's primary focus is on research and information about how society prepares for, responds to, recovers from, and mitigates damage and other losses from natural hazards and catastrophic events.

This nonlending library is an important resource for scholars and practitioners who are studying hazards and disasters. The collection includes bound documents, serials, reports, journal articles, video tapes, and compact discs.

HazLit, the library's searchable online database, provides access to the full collection of the library. HazLit offers users the opportunity to easily search the library's holdings and identify the publications they need. The database is updated weekly.

In addition to this online service, for a fee, the Natural Hazards Center can conduct extensive custom searches of its library collection. Feel free to ask us hazards-related questions too! We are happy to guide your research or put you in touch with people or institutions that may have the answers you need.

The Natural Hazards Center would like to thank the Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI) for funding the HazLit upgrade project.