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Charles Perrow is famous worldwide for his ideas about normal accidents, the notion that multiple and unexpected failures--catastrophes waiting to happen--are built into our society's complex systems. In The Next Catastrophe, he offers crucial insights into how to make us safer, proposing a bold new way of thinking about disaster preparedness.Perrow argues that rather than laying exclusive emphasis on protecting targets, we should reduce their size to minimize damage and diminish their attractiveness to terrorists. He focuses on three causes of disaster--natural, organizational, and deliberate--and shows that our best hope lies in the deconcentration of high-risk populations, corporate power, and critical infrastructures such as electric energy, computer systems, and the chemical and food industries. Perrow reveals how the threat of catastrophe is on the rise, whether from terrorism, natural disasters, or industrial accidents. Along the way, he gives us the first comprehensive history of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security and examines why these agencies are so ill equipped to protect us.The Next Catastrophe is a penetrating reassessment of the very real dangers we face today and what we must do to confront them. Written in a highly accessible style by a renowned systems-behavior expert, this book is essential reading for the twenty-first century. The events of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina--and the devastating human toll they wrought--were only the beginning. When the next big disaster comes, will we be ready?
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The Next Catastrophe This page intentionally left blank The Next Catastrophe Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters Charles Perrow PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Copyright © 2007 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Perrow, Charles. The next catastrophe : reducing our vulnerabilities to natural, industrial, and terrorist disasters / Charles Perrow. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12997-6 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-691-12997-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Emergency management—United States. 2. Disasters—Government policy— United States. 3. Risk management—United States. 4. Hazard mitigation—United States. 5. Terrorism—United States—Prevention. 6. Infrastructure (Economics)— Security measures—United States. I. Title HV551.3.P45 2006 363.34'7—dc22 2006037984 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Sabon with Helvetica Neue Heavy display. Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ press.princeton.edu Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments vii Part One: Introduction and Natural Disasters ix Chapter 1 Shrink the Targets Chapter 2 “Natural” Disasters? Part Two: Can Government Help? 1 14 41 Chapter 3 The Government Response: The First FEMA 43 Chapter 4 The Disaster after 9/11: The Department of Homeland Security and a New FEMA 68 Part Three: The Disastrous Private Sector 131 Are Terrorists as Dangerous as Management? The Nuclear Plant Threat 133 Chapter 6 Better Vulnerability through Chemistry 174 Chapter 7 Disastrous Concentration in the National Power Grid 211 Concentration and Terror on the Internet 248 Chapter 5 Chapter 8 vi _ CONT