Thread by @USofDisaster

1. If you look at images from Houston & wonder how the world's wealthiest nation has trouble learning from disaster this thread is for you.

2. In 18th and 19th centuries Americans still talked about disasters as "acts of God"-pre-industrial America was fatalistic & decentralized

3. Industrializing America from the Civil War to WWII was a machine of wealth creation, but it was also a disaster machine

4. Fires: Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Seattle, Iroquois Theater, Salem; Floods: Johnstown, Galveston, Mississippi River-a disastrous age

5. It was so bad it led to a shake up across the sciences, engineering, architecture-it was a profound crisis of confidence in technology

6. Result was REVOLUTION in urban design, buildings, public health, fire protection & rise of flood plain management, zoning, building codes

7. Not to mention meteorology, seismology, hydrology-the natural systems of disaster & urban systems of disaster became visible & known

8. If it sounds exciting, IT WAS-investments in disaster research across the sciences & engineering before WWII made urban life possible!!!

9. Believe it or not this wasn't a conspiracy of scientists-the insurance industry paid for a lot of this research! Doing well by doing good

10. After WWII a similar revolution followed in disaster research, this time in the social sciences.

11.Enrico Quarantelli, Russell Dynes, Gilbert White (+many more) wanted to know fundamental reasons society functions as it does in disaster

12. These researchers were often working with funds from US Civil Defense-ostensibly modeling how Americans would deal with atomic attack.

13. In reality they were modeling a reality, not a fantasy-they were discovering that disasters affect people differently, identity matters

14. Basic govt research investments got this line of work going-by '90s we could talk very clearly about who is affected & why in disaster

15. Places like the @UDELDRC and @HazCenter are the products of this era-& they continue to be important centers for interdisciplinary work

16. All of this investment in disaster research brought the losses down to a rounding error as we entered the 21st century, right? (nope)

17. Like the maintenance of our physical infrastructures, policymakers started scaling back investments in disaster research in the 1980s

18. Poverty didn't end, the legacies of racial segregation didn't disappear, the infrastructure aged, & the research investment lagged

19. Sept. 11 opened up a possibility-a nation unprepared for terrorist attack made a massive research investment-but the focus was narrow

20. Then the storms: Andrew, Allison, Katrina, Rita, Irene, Sandy, & the earthquakes, & and the fires . . . a new era of disasters emerged

21. While we were worried about atomic attack we were busily building ourselves into harm's way, heading south & to the coasts & wildlands

22. Natl. Academies, NOAA, NIST, USGS, CalFire, NSF, FEMA-many researchers working, but where was the national imperative-the integration?

23. Critically, where was the will to bring disaster researchers together across disciplines & enure that policy makers used the findings?

24. Our inheritance of disaster research in science, engineering, & social science has been squandered as Houston drowns

25. Now even the remaining social scientists in major disaster reduction agencies are always afraid their programs will be defunded

26. The real estate-lending-development complex is powerful, & if they are going to drive disaster policy we need MORE not LESS research

27. Big picture: American history shows a research-into-policy process is possible and can lower risks-even in high development times

28. We are facing a tall order right now-rising inequality and global warming+disinvestment across the disaster disciplines-leaves us weak

29.So when Trump comes to office & forces everyone who cares about these issues into a corner it makes me angry-but I take solace in history

30.This nation has capacity to end suffering from disaster! Restore research funds, integrate the disciplines, & GET REAL-lives are at stake

31.Counting on colleagues to correct my narrative! @EganHistory @DanielPAldrich @jacremes @CindyErmus @geomando
please r/t #twitterstorians

Emphasis here on building codes & the work of organizations like the Natl Fire Protection Assn & UL-and rise of professional fire service

Sometimes a controversial point & worth exploring-insurers acted in self interest but result was broader safety-especially Factory Mutuals

The work was by no means done by WWII, just to be clear, but the key areas of expertise were formed & working