This dissertation examines the extent to which social vulnerability, as studied by researchers across multiple disciplines, has influenced the practice of emergency management at the local level. This study addresses two major research questions to accomplish this goal. First, how do local emergency managers perceive and define social vulnerability? Second, what strategies do local emergency managers employ to reach and meet the needs of socially vulnerable populations? Semi-structured interviews were conducted in person or by phone with a sample of local emergency managers, city managers, and American Red Cross personnel from the Houston - Galveston and the South East Texas regions as defined by the respective Councils of Government. A modified grounded theory approach was used with a constant comparative method to identify themes for each research question. Triangulation was accomplished through secondary census data and supplemental interviews. The interview data reveal that social vulnerability research has had an indirect influence on the practice of emergency management at the local level. This influence is facilitated through state and federal policy, training, and plans development. Based on the interview data, four themes were identified that capture the various ways in which local emergency management officials perceive and define social vulnerability. These include vulnerability as poverty and culture, vulnerability as a lack of security, vulnerability as a moral imperative, and vulnerability as a lack of awareness and knowledge. In terms of strategies employed to address social vulnerability, the data suggest four themes: leaving it to the professionals, bringing in volunteers, leveraging protocols to build buy-in, and fostering flexibility. The findings reveal the importance in closing the knowledge gap between research and practice, because increased damage, harm, and death can occur when the social inequalities of everyday life are not addressed in the planning process by emergency managers. The findings also reveal that state and federal policy, training, and plans development are the most trusted sources by emergency managers to transfer knowledge to practice. Additionally, with the proliferation of emergency management degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels, higher education can potentially play a more active and visible role in bridging the gap between research and practice, particularly as it relates to social vulnerability.

Research into the psychological consequences of natural disasters in South Africa remains largely unexplored. This is surprising, given the devastating economical and psychological ramifications that result from major catastrophic events. No research has been done relating specifically to the experiences and coping strategies of fanners who have experienced a veld fire disaster in South Africa. Farmers constitute an important sub-group for study as they may be psychologically at risk to the effects of disasters. In the international research arena exploration of the long-term consequences of disasters is lacking. In considering the question of coping following a disaster, few studies have focused on the influence of temporal dynan1ics, which would seem to be crucial to the outcomes of coping strategies. This study aims to address these gaps in the literature by exploring the experiences and coping strategies of farmers who have experienced a veld fire disaster which occurred in the North West Province of South Africa on 23 August 2011. The total financial loss as a result of the fire amounted to R42 276 I 71. The fires were allegedly caused by damaged power lines, which produced sparks and ignited the nearby veld. This study used a qualitative design. This methodological approach was adopted for its ability to capture the complex and time-sensitive dynamics of coping strategies. This was combined with a case study approach, based on the experiences and coping strategies of eight farmers who had experienced a veld fire disaster within the boundaries of one geographical area. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the farmers in their homes and were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed. The results of the analysis showed that the farmers progressed through three time periods with distinct patterns of experience and corresponding coping strategies. The person environment relationship, as well as transitioning situational demands inherent in this relationship, were found to be crucial in determining the outcomes of the fanners• experiences and coping strategies. The results also suggest that successful coping is reliant on the individual’s ability to continually adapt their coping strategies in a context-appropriate manner. It is recommended that psychological debriefing should be avoided and that crisis intervention teams (CIT) should focus on the long-term consequences of the veld fire. Future coping research needs to take the temporal aspects of coping into account. / MA (Research Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

In South Africa, January 2011 was characterised by above average rainfall which resulted in many provinces being flooded. On the 17th of January 2011, the government of South Africa declared the City of Tshwane a National Disaster Area. It is in the city of Tshwane where a hotel was flooded causing great damage and disruption to the lives of the hotel workers. Given the lack of existing research focusing on the social dimensions of natural disasters, this provided an opportunity to study the social impact of the flood on the community of hotel workers at a Pretoria hotel. Four sub-aims were set for the study, which involved an exploration of the strengths that were exhibited, discovered or developed as a result of the flood; investigating the subjective experiences in relation to the flood; exploring the interactional patterns and relationships of the hotel workers; as well as investigating how the leadership of the hotel impacted on the manner in which the hotel workers dealt with the flood. A qualitative methodology, guided by a social constructivist epistemology was adopted as basis for the study. Data was gathered by means of individual semi-structured interviews, semi-structured questionnaires, and a focus group interview with a number of employees at the hotel. The data was subjected to qualitative content and grounded theoretical analysis. Five main themes emerged from the analysis, which include: Emotional responses, which included negative emotions such as shock, fear, frustration and anger, as well as positive emotions such as happiness and appreciation; a variety of interactional patterns and relationships; increased cohesiveness; enhanced leadership, and the development of group resilience. / MA, Medical Sociology, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Today, information sharing is critical to almost every institution and organization. There is no more pressing need for information sharing than during an international crisis, where multi-national military-civilian coordination is formed. Successful information technology implementation for international crises could be increased by analyzing prior relief efforts. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the role of information technology in enabling the sharing of actionable information among various organizations in relief efforts. At all levels of relief efforts, strategies to provide adequate help to the victims of disaster will rely on the development and distribution of actionable information. It is essential that participants strengthen their capacity to gather, share, analyze and disseminate such information. When using or developing information technology in relief operations, it is necessary to be aware of the obstacles related to information sharing. Due to the uniqueness of each relief operation, dependant on the various participants and nature of the disaster, it is difficult to define the problems, symptoms and possible solutions of each situation. Specifically, this thesis attempts to establish the requirements for the development of a Disaster Information Management System by examining both the universal problems in disaster relief operations and their possible solutions from within information technology.

CHDS State/Local / The problem confronting The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense (DoD), and Americaâ s private sector is how to collectively protect the nationâ s critical infrastructure. The challenge for the DHS is in motivating partnerships across the public, private, and DoD domains, each with different organizational and cultural objectives governed under a federalist system. The relevance of this problem lies in the vulnerability of Americaâ s economic and military foundations to terrorist attacks or a catastrophic natural disaster. Research conducted of the regulated energy and water industries indicates federal standards can be effectively established across the public-private domains. The establishment of federal tax and insurance incentives, limiting corporate liability, and developing industry standards may motivate increased security and circumvent excessive federal mandates. The conduct of partnering is scrutinized via personal interviews to determine if the recommendation to build security partnerships with federal guidance is sufficient to secure critical infrastructure. The implementation of a dual-purpose strategy is recommended to further enhance the efficiency of security partnerships. This thesis suggests the DHS must develop an innovative CIP policy and utilize the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) as the vehicle to integrate and synchronize the actions of all security partners. / Major, Alaskan Command (ALCOM)

CHDS State/Local / Concerns about inadequate radio communications at the scene of disasters predate 9/11, and have been a focal point of homeland security funding since 2001. Under the umbrella term "interoperability," grant funding is facilitating the recent deployment of equipment to allow field personnel to patch radio systems together, with the expectation of immediate improvement of emergency scene communications dysfunction. This thesis argues that there are numerous causal factors for inadequate disaster communications. Communications impediments include insufficient radio infrastructure, behavioral reactions by people in stressful situations, intergovernmental relations, inadequate procedures and training, and general lethargy over the need to institute special operating policies differing from routine practices. The sole reliance upon technological solutions, without proportionate training and practice greatly reduces the effectiveness of radio patching equipment. Quite opposite from the intended effect, patching equipment, in the hands of those only minimally acclimated to radio system architecture, is likely to trigger unintended consequences of chaotic system overload (by combining two or more busy channels) and sector vulnerability (by combining unsecured general public systems with previously isolated public safety systems). Our goal is to provide a thought-provoking examination of the entire realm of emergency scene communications issues and practical recommendations beyond superficial technological solutions. / Director - Public Safety Communications, City of Plano, Texas

Natural disasters are social and political phenomena. Social structures create vulnerability to natural hazards and governments are often seen as responsible for the effects of disasters. Do social trust, political trust, and government satisfaction therefore generally change following natural disasters? How can media coverage explain change in political attitudes? Prior research suggests that these variables are prone to change, but previous studies often focus on single cases, whereas this dissertation adopts a broader approach, examining multiple disasters. It investigates the social and political impact of natural disasters by examining their effect on social and political attitudes and by exploring media coverage as a mechanism underlying political consequences. The results reveal that natural disasters may have a comparatively frequent, although small and temporary, effect on social trust. Substantial effects are less likely. Social trust was found to decrease significantly when disasters cause nine or more fatalities (Paper I). Political attitudes were expected to be prone to change after natural disasters, but Paper II illustrates that political trust and government satisfaction among citizens are generally hardly affected by these events. Finally, media framing and the political claims of actors explained the variation in political consequences after disasters of similar severity. Paper III also illustrates the importance of the political context of natural disasters, as their occurrence can be strategically exploited by actors to further criticism towards the government in politically tense situations. This dissertation contributes to existing disaster research by investigating more cases than disaster studies typically do. It also uses a systematic case selection process, and a quantitative approach with a, for disaster research, unique research design. Hence, it offers methodological nuance to existing studies. A broader analysis, factoring in the variation of disaster severity and the increased number of cases offers new answers and tests assumptions about underlying patterns. The main contribution of this thesis is that it examines how common political and social effects of disasters are. Furthermore, this dissertation contributes to existing disasters research by emphasizing contextual and explanatory factors, e.g., properties of disasters and the political context that affects the media coverage of natural disasters.

The study is a contextual analysis of flood victimization. Victimization is defined as the social, psychological, and physiological aftermath experienced by victims of a disaster. Disaster researchers concentrate on the victims' characteristics to explain the varying degrees of their victimization, providing only ambiguous results. Theorists such as Kreps, Wildavsky, and Douglas contend that the outcomes of disasters are contingent upon social structure. This analysis treats victimization as one such outcome. The condition and behavior of individuals can be explained by the presence of disaster and the conditions of social organization. A model explains victimization based on individual's attributes (individual resources), his social environment, and the disaster characteristics. This study uses the 1984 Mingo Creek Flood Victims Survey data to test the model. The data contain information measuring victimization. The survey data are linked with 1980 Census tract data. The tract data provide indicators of the social networks. This tract information, the contextual variables, taps the social conditions, including poverty, unemployment, geographic mobility, and family patterns. This study uses factor analysis to identify the dimensions of victimization. Regression tests the relationship between the contextual variables, the individual resource variables, the disaster characteristic variables, and victimization. The results of the analysis show that victimization is multidimensional with different types of variables being significant predictors for each dimension of victimization, one variable indicating the intensity of the disaster, the dollar value of damage victims experienced, is found to be a significant predictor of the psychological, physiological, and social disruption aspects of victimization. Variables measuring the family and unemployment patterns in the victims' census tract are significant predictors of the psychological and social disruption aspect of victimization. The findings provide general support for the proposed model of victimization. However, victimization is multidimensional with each dimension having a unique set of predictors. Based on the findings, this study suggests that future research focus on measurement and conceptualization of the characteristics of disasters and the victims' social environment.

While people all over the world are vulnerable to natural disasters, the available data clearly demonstrate a great deal of cross-country variance in the impact of catastrophic events. For example, while Hurricane Mitch took an estimated 13,000 lives when it struck Honduras and Nicaragua, the stronger Hurricane Andrew took only 26 lives when it impacted the United States. What factors explain this difference? Thus far, disaster researchers have emphasized economic and social vulnerability as determinants of disaster impact; the conventional wisdom accepts that poor and underdeveloped countries are more vulnerable than wealthy, developed countries. I argue that the political institutions of a country also matter and then examine the relative importance of political vulnerability as a determinant of disaster impact. I present evidence from case studies and large-N statistical analysis that demonstrates that, like social and economic vulnerability, political vulnerability is an important determinant of the impact of a natural disaster.

No Brasil, os desastres relacionados às chuvas são recorrentes visto que estes compõem, aproximadamente, um quarto dos eventos oficialmente registrados (VALENCIO; VALENCIO, 2010). A ineficácia em torno das atuações para mitigação dos desastres torna este cenário preocupante, visto que no período de janeiro de 2003 a dezembro de 2013, foram decretadas 20.766 portarias de reconhecimento de Situação de Emergência e Estado de Calamidade Pública no país. Na perspectiva das Ciências Sociais, o desastre consiste em um acontecimento multidimensional, que possui caráter social, ambiental, cultural, político, econômico, físico ou tecnológico (OLIVER-SMITH, 1998), e que não pode ser compreendido, portanto, como evento pontual, por deflagrar uma crise instaurada no corpo social (VALENCIO, 2012a). Em vista de compreender as dimensões materiais e simbólicas do desastre, o presente trabalho analisou a memória social de idosos em relação ao desastre deflagrado no município de São Luiz do Paraitinga/SP em janeiro de 2010, sob uma perspectiva do desastre vivenciado (MARTINS, 1992, 2000). Este estudo se caracterizou como pesquisa sociológica de base qualitativa, consistindo em três partes, a saber: a revisão bibliográfica, a pesquisa documental, e a pesquisa de campo. A pesquisa bibliográfica, consistiu na análise dos principais autores no tema de desastres, vida cotidiana, memória social e idosos. Já a pesquisa documental, caracterizou-se pela preparação e fundamentação para a pesquisa de campo, por meio da análise do discurso institucional sobre o desastre no município de São Luiz do Paraitinga/SP. E, a pesquisa de campo, foi realizada a partir da observação direta e participante, da coleta de relatos orais (QUEIROZ, 1987) e da fotodocumentação (MARTINS, 2008). A partir dos resultados analisados, após quatro anos do chamado dia do desastre, percebeu-se que este ainda permanece na vida dos que o vivenciaram (VALENCIO, 2012a). Além da reconstrução no plano material, no plano simbólico, os medos e anseios ressurgem ao relembrar aspectos essenciais de um modo de vida que foi perturbado. Com isso, as pessoas já não se reconhecem no território, caracterizando-se, portanto como um processo de desrritualização, o qual desfaz diversos significados dentro da estrutura simbólica (THORNBURG; KNOTTNERUS; WEBB, 2007). E, de modo geral, a memória do desastre vivenciado se configura, por meio da conciliação entre as memórias oficiais e as individuais (POLLAK, 1992). Sendo assim, são pelos desencontros, pelas constantes rupturas, construções e reelaborações do passado, forjados pelos diferentes sujeitos, que a memória social acontece. Tal memória não permanece intacta nem coesa, pois é uma constante representação de algo já vivido e reacomodado. / In Brazil, the rain related disasters are recurrent since these represent, approximately, one-fourth of events officially registered (VALENCIO; VALENCIO, 2010). The ineffectiveness around the work for mitigation of disasters makes this a troubling scenario, since in the southeast of Brazil, from January 2003 to December 2013, were enacted 20.766 administrative rules in the Recognition of Emergency and State of Public Calamity. From the perspective of the social sciences, disaster consists of a multidimensional event that has social, environmental, cultural, political, economic, physical or technological (OLIVER-SMITH, 1998) aspects, and cannot be understood as a punctual event by triggering a crisis into the social structure (VALENCIO, 2012a).In order to understand the material and symbolic dimensions of disaster, this dissertation analyzed the social memory of the elderly regarding the disaster happened in São Luiz do Paraitinga / SP in January 2010, from the perspective of experienced disaster (MARTINS, 1992 , 2000).This study was characterized as a qualitative sociological research base, consisting of three parts, namely: literature review, desk research and field research. The bibliographic research consisted in the analysis of the main authors on the topic of disaster, everyday life, social memory and the elderly people. The desk research was characterized by the preparation and justification for field research, by analyzing the institutional speech about the disaster in São Luiz do Paraitinga / SP. And the fieldwork was done from direct and participant observation, the collection of oral histories (QUEIROZ, 1987) and photo documentation (MARTINS, 2008). From the analyzed results, after four years since the day of the disaster, it was noticed that this still remains in the lives of those who experienced it (VALENCIO, 2012a).Besides the material reconstitution, on the symbolic level, the fears and anxieties rise in recalling key aspects of a way of life that has been disturbed. Therefore, people no longer recognizes themselves in the territory, characterized, thus, as a process of deritualization, which undoes many meanings within the symbolic structure (THORNBURG; KNOTTNERUS; WEBB, 2007). And, generally, the memory of experienced disaster is configured by means of conciliation between official and individual memories (POLLAK, 1992). Thus, due to divergence, constant disruptions, constructions and reworkings of the past, constructed by different individuals, that social memory happens. Such memory does not remain intact nor cohesive as it is a constant representation of something already lived and resettled.