I know that it should surprise no one that life is not like the movies. The reason this matters is that our fascination with disasters—like Noah’s Ark—shapes how we deal with more mundane disasters and emergencies. This is especially the case in how the United States (as well as many other developed nations) direct resources to manage disasters. Disasters are thought of as immense, all-powerful events that will ruin society, instead of a series of natural and technological challenges that can be avoided through smart planning and wise investments. There are four mission areas in modern emergency management: 1) Prevention/Protection, which mostly focuses on stopping a disaster or attack before it starts; 2) Mitigation, which is all about defending against an event; 3) Response, which is what one does during an event; 4) and Recovery, which involves putting the pieces back together. Every study and analysis ever performed shows that investments in Prevention and Mitigation are the best, most cost-effective methods of dealing with hazards, and that focusing only on Response is both expensive and also dangerous. No matter how good emergency first responders are, they will not be able to ensure that not everyone will live to the recovery phase. But historically, states and federal agencies have Security focused most of their resources and attention on that Response phase. That is where most of the money for disaster management goes, both domestically and internationally. In essence, people think that we do not need to prepare, because a Noah will save them.

 

Even more dangerously, there are always people that are excited to be Noah in the next disaster, although not the Noah of warning individuals, and sacrificing so much to survive; they want to be the Noah who saves the day. The current fascination with the apocalypse, which will ostensibly result in the destruction of almost everything, co-exists peacefully with the self-centeredness of most Americans. In other words, the end of the world may be coming, but each person thinks they are clever enough or special enough to survive. Disasters are not times for people to be heroes, or to see “what they are really made of”. After every disaster, a group of well-intentioned but poorly informed individuals with grand egos and big hearts rush into disaster sites and start helping. (Disclaimer: I have done this several times.) After Katrina, for example, groups were in such a rush to rebuild homes, to have a feeling of righted a wrong that they failed to properly clear houses of mold, putting the future inhabitants at risk. It is easy to draw a line from the story of Noah to the current mindset of heroes saving the day, when in reality emergency management is mostly about paperwork, planning, and long, long, meetings. The work I have done that I am most proud of has mostly been incredibly boring and routine, and would never be mistaken for anything that Noah is reported to have done. The concept of a hero saving the day in a disaster, which has its roots in the story of Noah, is unrealistic and has caused numerous problems in disaster situations.

 

In contrast to a small group of “heroes” who try to swing in and save people from disasters, I think that society as a whole has begun to see disasters as inevitable. This too has an origin in Noah’s Flood. If there is an all-powerful, all knowing God, and He or She wants to flood the world, I imagine the world is going to flood. But the regular hurricanes, earthquakes, snowstorms and tornadoes that are not caused by the Almighty but are still defined as “Acts of God” can always be prepared for, mitigated against, or prevented in some way. One can look at it this way – if the Mississippi River reaches a height of 20.5 feet above the average, it will overtop the levee, and the resulting flood will be deemed an “Act of God.” But if the height is only at 19.5 ft, it is an ordinary day in the Crescent City. Somewhere along the line, someone made the decision that 20’ of water is not a risk that is worth preventing. (For more on how this decision came to be made, read the amazing book Rising Tide by John M. Barry.)

 

The decision is often made to ignore risks because implementing disaster risk reduction policies or projects are thought to be too expensive or too disruptive of business or economic activity. It is worth noting that the people who make this decision are almost never the people who will suffer or whose lives will be disrupted by a disaster. For example, it is getting more and more difficult to find a scientist who doesn’t believe that our maniacal use of fossil fuels is powering the change in the climate that will result in sea level rise, the spread of tropical disease, and a myriad of other disastrous effects. And yet, instead of reducing this fossil fuel use through simple steps we can all take, most Americans, and certainly most American legislators, have taken the view that it can’t be stopped and we will all have to deal with what comes. But these Americans won’t be dealing with this climate change – it will be future generations, and likely the poor who will feel the brunt of this choice. While the decision has a basis in racism, xenophobia, greed, misogyny, and politics, it also stems from a belief that disasters like Noah’s flood are inevitable. It is another example of the story from the Bible being co-opted to excuse actions that would otherwise be inexcusable.