Individual and Societal Risk (RiskIS): Beyond Probability and Consequence During Hurricane Katrina
The classical definition of risk revolves around probability and consequence. However, individuals can have varying understanding of risk which in turn affects their decisions and actions. The varying understanding and actions stem from to deep-seated fun
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Abstract The classical definition of risk revolves around probability and consequence. However, individuals can have varying understanding of risk which in turn affects their decisions and actions. The varying understanding and actions stem from to deep-seated fundamental assumptions (i.e., beliefs and predispositions). However, deep-seated fundamental assumptions are often not included in traditional risk measures of probability and consequences. This chapter attempts to close this gap by developing a risk framework, RiskIS, that includes individual and society measures influencing decisions and actions. These measures are developed by examining literature and contrasting the resulting measures with a well-known event: Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. A synthesis of this research provides a wider array of measures that influence decisions and actions (i.e., norms and personal attitudes, organizational structures, knowledge base, and social context, degree of connectivity, race and ethnicity, mass media, and national ideology). The proposed framework provides a basis for inclusion of a contextual frame of reference that influence actions beyond probability and consequence. Implications for those involved in disaster management are provided.
Keywords Hurricane Katrina Individual society (RiskIS) Society Traditional risk
New Orleans Risk individual—
1 Introduction Hurricane Katrina has the distinction of being the “costliest and one of the five deadliest hurricanes to ever strike the United States” [24, p. 1]. The damages associated with Hurricane Katrina are estimated to have been 108 billion dollars (US) with
P.F. Katina (&) Old Dominon University, Norfolk, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 A.J. Masys (ed.), Disaster Forensics, Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41849-0_1
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over 1800 deaths [24, 49]. It is natural to stop and reflect on why there was so much damage and loss of life from a hurricane which had been publicized with prior warnings by federal, state, and local levels/authorities especially related to aspects of making landfall and potential consequences for the city as well as the residents of the city of New Orleans [4]. Arguably, a response might be found in the notion that past experiences should not be the basis for accurate prediction of future events. More succinctly, this notion suggests that “experiences of the past, encourages anticipation of the wrong kind of risk” [6, p. 330]. The irony is in the fact that there is a pervasive use of past information in many aspects of decision and actions in human-life. Certainly this is the case when someone decides to ‘ride-out’ a storm since they weren’t harmed by a previous storm. This form of thinking is often tacit and therefore difficult to be made explicit and almost impossible to quantify. When one revisits this situation from a perspective of risk, the conclusion is easily reached by assuming that the probability of occu
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