New to Disaster Buffs

Greetings!

I found this group by searching for "disaster" in LT groups. Honestly, I didn't think I'd find anything, but I had just cataloged A Memory of Solferino (which is not connecting properly via touchstones) by Henri Dunant and had already searched "Red Cross" with no results.

My interest in disasters is simple: I've been a Red Cross volunteer (and for a while paid staff) for over five and a half years. During that time I've done a lot of different things. Right now I am mostly doing community outreach, giving presentations on emergency preparedness and that sort of stuff. I also help out at some local disaster operations, but that is limited by a full-time paid job not related to disasters.

"Disaster" and "Red Cross" are both prominent in my tag cloud. I'm interested to see what books other LT Disaster Buffs have in their libraries.

Hi Karen - nice to see some activity in this group.

Among the ~1300 books I have entered, I have 72 tagged “disaster”. I recently read The White Cascade by Gary Krist. It looks like no other members of this group have found it yet, but I can highly recommend it. This is the story of a 1910 snowstorm and avalanche in Wellington, WA, on the route of the Great Northern railroad.

One minor complaint would be that the maps in this book are not adequate. You can download a topo map of the Wellington area from the Iron Goat Trail website.

I noticed that Inviting Disaster was among the most-owned books of the group and borrowed it from the public library. I'm enjoying the author's opinions on why technological disasters happen.

Most of my reading has been about natural disasters, so there is less of a "why" factor, although even in natural disasters there is usually a reason why the effects were as bad/not so bad as they were.

Oregonobsessionz, I'm sorry that your library is private. I'd enjoy seeing what you have. But I looked up The White Cascade and my local library has it, so I'll be looking for it as soon as it's returned.

I haven't read Inviting Disaster, but it looks very good and has been on my wish list for quite a while. I'll have to nudge it a bit closer to the top of the list.

Hi, I have just joined LT and this group which I was surprised to find. My professional background is in non-profits, government, and education and includes a decade with Red Cross, followed by a dozen years as a consultant. I recently completed a Master's in Homeland Security Admin. and am most focused on helping individuals, small businesses, and others who are frequently overlooked in the planning process. I'm especially interested in new books related to that process.

Welcome, Gallifrey!

Your background is similar to mine: non-profit, education, and Red Cross (no government). In fact, I'm doing shifts at my local chapter today and Sunday. (Are you familiar with the RCN Call Center? It allows certain chapters to be "satellites" to the National information call center during major emergencies. My chapter activated on Wednesday because of the California wildfires.) My usual volunteer gig is doing presentation on emergency preparedness, but I pitch in on the Call Center and some local emergencies as time permits.

I'll take a look at your library for disaster-related books.

Disaster Buffs is a small group. I look forward to having a new member contribute.

I was perusing the list of commonly held books and found that furdog and I had some overlap. That led me to the discovery of this group. Unlike some of you I have no direct professional responsibility for disaster management but does it count if I have a brother who is an emergency manager? How about my daughter who is working on her PhD studying tornadoes? I think a fascination with disasters runs in my family. We run outside when the tornado sirens go off and only take to the basement when we must.

Although I live in the community of the infamous I35 bridge collapse, I was not in town that day. I did commute over the span twice a day. I watch the aftermath with appalled fascination; the blame game is up and running while the actual victims continue to suffer. The White Cascade was interesting reading with its commentary on the corporate response to that event. I just finished Under a Flaming Sky about another Minnesota tragedy exacerbated by industrial practices of the time.

For those of you willing to share your library titles, thank you. I have gotten some reading ideas by looking at what you own. I see that the much-needed "private comments" field is now active. Just wondering if any of you have had bad experiences sharing your library titles with others.

Glad to hear you enjoyed The White Cascade. I have Under a Flaming Sky but haven't found time to read it.

No problems with titles, but I have some info in comments that I don't want to share. A few books that might be valuable, but mostly comments that might embarrass someone.

One example: I used to work with someone whose husband is an aspiring author. He writes in a genre that doesn't interest me, and I found his writing quite awful in any case. But I dutifully went to his readings, and bought some of his books for her sake. I have refrained from rating those books. Instead, I have notes in the comments to remind myself why I have them. One of these days I will cart them down to Powell's, along with my duplicates, and unload them to someone who will hopefully enjoy them.

Now that we have private comments, I have been working on moving information into the private comment field. When I finish that, I will make my catalog public.

Hi, Karen--

A belated welcome to the group! I've been out of touch.

I'll be having a look at your library. I want to provide some books on the Red Cross to the students at the high school where I work, and I haven't been able to find anything I liked.

Hi: I had no idea that there was a disaster buffs group on LT but, to my pleasant surprise, there is.

I have no background in disaster planning or any work-related capacity. I just like to read an occasional book about disasters.

I'm a Chicago area resident and like to read about our local disasters, in particular. My most recent disaster book read was Remembrances of the Angels: 50th Anniversary Reminiscences of the Fire No One Can Forget by John Kuenster. This book includes interviews of survivors and others connected to the December 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago.

Chicago is certainly the place to live if you are interested in local disasters. Your city has had more than its fair share of tragic occurrences.

Thanks so much for mentioning the new book. I hadn't run across it. (Amazon's recommendation system must be VERY flawed.) I have ordered it now. It will complete my trilogy of books on the incident.

Welcome to the group!

Thanks, furdog. I've inputted all the books I've read (going back to 1976) but am still in the midst of tagging them all. I've read more disaster books than I realized but I don't think I've identified them all yet.

Also, I'm doing the 999 challenge--9 books in each of 9 different categories. One of my categories is disaster books. I have plenty of book ideas, I think, but will still be rummaging around for more.

I learned about the Disaster Buffs group from lindapanzo and furdog. I've been working in the field of process safety management for 17 years. I'm very interested in technical/industrial disasters, in the chemical/petrochemical/petroleum/aerospace/nuclear industries. I like to read a lot about human error and how we can reduce it, and also about having the appropriate management systems in place to reduce error and minimize risk.

Some of the seminal events in my field are Bhopal, Challenger, Columbia, Texas City, Seveso, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island; I'm always interested in titles about these events and similar ones. I'm also interested in environmental disasters like Love Canal.

I use the tag disaster, but I also use risk and human error. I'll have to look at those; if they include a discussion of some disasters, I'll also tag them that as well.

I see a lot of neat threads here and will be exploring!

Hi again LisaMorr, I am most interested in weather-related disasters--tornadoes, blizzards and the like--but I am expanding my disaster horizons.

You do raise some interesting disasters. I think I've added books on some of those to my 999 challenge--disaster topic.

Hi, LisaMorr--

Glad to see you here. Process Safety Management sounds like it would have been a good career field for me, although I also like being a school librarian.

I was in for a minor medical procedure today and noticed the posted instructions for the medical staff to avoid surgery fires. Not something the average patient thinks about...and one last thing to worry about as you drift off to la-la land. But it sounds like Process Safety Management at work to me. :-)

ETC meducak to medical.

I've always wondered about the restriction on wearing nail polish when they wheel you in for surgery lest it combust. I had a friend who didn't know and the surgical nurses removed the polish right there in the operating room before they got started. It always seemed to me that the remover was much more flammable and likely to cause a problem than dry polish on someone's nails, but I'm sure there must be some aspect of this that I don't see.

lindapanzo - I would like to read more about weather disasters, so I'll be trolling your posts!

furdog - that's good to hear about hospitals; now the medical field is ripe for improvement in human error. It makes me crazy how many medical errors occur. There is a lot that could be done to improve it, and we're starting to see some things. Operating rooms are very dangerous with the pure oxygen - that facilitates fires. Also, it used to be not that hard to mis-connect the hoses from the cylinders - so one cylinder would be oxygen, the next nirtogen, or anesthesia, or ethylene oxide for sterlizing equipment. And being a school librarian - working with books all the time, that is cool. Process safety is very interesting, but I think working with books gets the edge....!

varielle - I've set my nail polish on fire before, it's kind of funny.... You're right though - the old standard for nail polish remover is acetone, highly flammable. It's also very volatile, so once it's used it evaporates very quickly.

You're an odd one, LisaMorr--setting your nail polish on fire is kind of funny. Hmmm. No, I get what you mean.

Actually I guess I do a fair amount of process safety work on a very low level as a school librarian--fire drills, making sure the aisles are wide enough and not blocked, not using extension cords for a lengthy amount of time, and not daisy-chaining surge protectors. My desk, on the other hand, is a hazard--equally likely to cause a landslide, collapse, fire, flood, or avalanche--it just depends on what gets knocked over. LOL.

About 18 months ago, right after I had surgery, I saw a mini-documentary about surgical fires. It's a friightening possibility. Glad I saw it AFTER my own surgery.

I spent the night at an old downtown Chicago hotel last night and took the advice of whoever here mentioned noting the emergency exits. As I always do, I noted the direction/location of the nearest emergency exit but, this time, counted the number of doors to the exit as well.

>16 varielle: I wonder if there's another reason; if there are any medical people here, perhaps they could advise. Skin color beneath the fingernails is a common indicator for blood oxygen, and you can't see that through nail polish. I realize there's all sorts of other equipment to show bloodoxygen hooked up during surgery, but it never hurts to have backup.

setnahkt, you are right, it's the thingie (good technical term, eh?) they put on your finger that measures the amount of oxygen in the blood, as well as being able to see the skin color.

19> One of the scariest things I ever read was an NFPA manual discussing oxygen fires. Fortunately, OSHA is acting and there is now a program to replace all oxygen with inert gas. I don't know if it will come before or after the requirement to solidify all water to prevent drowning.

Yes, the hazards of inhaling di-hydrogen oxide should be prevented at all costs....

I just found your Disaster Buffs group, and am glad to see I'm not the only one fascinated by reading about disasters! I particularly like seeing the lessons that can be learned when disasters are studied, in order to prevent future tragedies.

I've been reading through past messages you all have posted, and I've already added quite a few items to my wishlist, thanks to the books that you've mentioned in your posts.