描述
开 本: 16开纸 张: 胶版纸包 装: 精装是否套装: 否国际标准书号ISBN: 9780307265265
This important book by one of our leading experts on disaster
preparedness offers a compelling narrative about our nation’s
inability to properly plan for large-scale disasters and proposes
changes that can still be made to assure the safety of its
citizens.
Five years after 9/11 and one year after Hurricane Katrina, it is
painfully clear that the government’s emergency response capacity
is plagued by incompetence and a paralyzing bureaucracy. Irwin
Redlener, who founded and directs the National Center for Disaster
Preparedness, brings his years of experience with disasters and
health care crises, national and international, to an incisive
analysis of why our health care system, our infrastructure, and our
overall approach to disaster readiness have left the nation
vulnerable, virtually unable to respond effectively to catastrophic
events. He has had frank, and sometimes shocking, conversations
about the failure of systems during and after disasters with a
broad spectrum of people—from hospital workers and FEMA officials
to Washington policy makers and military leaders. And he also
analyzes the role of nongovernmental organizations, such as the
American Red Cross in the aftermath of Katrina.
Redlener points out how a government with a track record of
over-the-top cronyism and a stunning disregard for accountability
has spent billions on “random acts of preparedness,” with very
little to show for it—other than an ever-growing bureaucracy. As a
doctor, Redlener is especially concerned about America’s
increasingly dysfunctional and expensive health care system,
incapable of handling a large-scale public health emergency, such
as pandemic flu or widespread bioterrorism. And he also looks at
the serious problem of a disengaged, uninformed citizenry—one of
the most important obstacles to assuring optimal readiness for any
major crisis.
Redlener describes five natural and man-made disaster scenarios
as a way to imagine what we might face, what our current systems
would and would not prepare us for, and what would constitute
optimal planning—for government and the public—in each situation.
To see what could be learned from others, he points up some of the
more effective ways countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East
have dealt with various disasters. And he concludes with a real
pre*ion: a nine-point proposal for how America can be better
prepared as well as an addendum of what citizens themselves can
do.
An essential book for our time, Americans at Risk is a
devastating and realistic account of where we stand today.
I After the Strom
II How Is America Still Vulnerable？
III Why Were Not Prepared:Four Barriers to Optimal Readiness
IV Making America Sater:what We Need to Do Now
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