Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis―A Memoir and Expert Analysis of Our World's Growing Vulnerability to Natural Disasters

by Samantha Montano

Part memoir, part expert analysis, Disasterology is a passionate and personal account of a country in crisis—one unprepared to deal with the disasters of today and those looming in our future.

With temperatures rising and the risk of disasters growing, our world is increasingly vulnerable. Most people see disasters as freak, natural events that are unpredictable and unpreventable. But that simply isn’t the case – disasters are avoidable, but when they do strike, there are strategic ways to manage the fallout.

In Disasterology , Dr. Montano, a disaster researcher, brings readers with her on an eye-opening journey through some of our worst disasters, helping readers make sense of what really happened from a emergency management perspective. She explains why we aren’t doing enough to prevent or prepare for disasters, the critical role of media, and how our approach to recovery was not designed to serve marginalized communities. Now that climate change is contributing to the disruption of ecosystems and worsening disasters, Dr. Montano offers a preview of what will happen to our communities if we don’t take aggressive, immediate action. In a section devoted to the COVID-19 pandemic, what is thus far our generation’s most deadly disaster, she casts light on the many decisions made behind closed doors that failed to protect the public.

A deeply moving and timely narrative that draws on Dr. Montano's first-hand experience in emergency management, Disasterology is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how our country handles disasters, and how we can better face them together.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Environment, Nature, Climate Change, Memoir, Politics

384 pages, Hardcover

Published August 3, 2021

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disasterology is one of those books that should be more well known and widely read. I mean NPR Science Friday named it one of the best science books of 2021. It's enlightening, educational and it's important. Dr Samantha Montano worked for FEMA (federal emergency management agency) from hurricane Katrina through COVID and she is chronicling the FEMA response to several of the emergencies that occurred during that period of time. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology and a masters and doctorate in emergency management. Does anyone think that the US is prepared for future hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, droughts, pandemics, floods, chemical spills and other disasters ahead? State Farm Insurance just pulled out of California for home insurance because costs to rebuild and wildfires. What happens when, like the postal service, only the government (FEMA) can deliver?

Dr Montano is both praising and critiquing the agency. She thinks that the federal government response could and should have been better to most emergencies and she thinks the US is stunningly shortsighted and unprepared for the future. There are strategic ways to handle disasters. The cause of the lack of preparedness is almost completely political. I am reminded of Greta Thornberg when she said (paraphrased) that the world lacks adequate governing systems to solve the huge problems that we are facing. Montano echoes that and is specific to US. She says among many things that FEMA is unprepared for the next pandemic. That FEMA should not be under the Department of Homeland Security and that appointments should be limited to expertise and not as payment for political favors "Heck of a job, Brownie". FEMA is underfunded especially in view of the increased emergencies due to climate change. Most importantly, Americans don't understand Emergency Management. If we did, we'd be outraged by the performance and the conditions under which FEMA operates. She shows what the purpose of FEMA is and what can be done, then talks about how these situations could have been handled better and in some cases how they were handled correctly. She discusses the impacts of the disaster and FEMA's response on the community and the nation. Towards the end, she talks about how the organization has been gutted and how we are unprepared for future disasters. As with other things, we are electing officials that are more interested in proving that government is incapable of solving problems than officials who want to equip the government to address these problems. Private industry and charities are not equipped to handle issues of this magnitude.

I found Dr Montano to be very smart, experienced and a very good writer. The book is primarily science-based with Dr Montano's observations while she worked for FEMA. It is not a memoir. I feel like every American needs to understand the mechanic of emergency management to ensure that our government is prepared for the disasters of the future. Dr Montano issues a wakeup call regarding disaster management. There are very big problems ahead of us and we are squandering time. This is an excellent primer on emergency management, and I sure wish more people were reading it. It was much better than I expected. Not that this is an uplifting book; but Dr Montano helps me believe in the younger generation and their ability to address complicated things. Highly recommended!

4.5 Stars

Listened to the audiobook. Eileen Stevens was an excellent narrator.

[Karyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and easily accessible, Disasterology tells us a compelling story about climate and disaster and the problems that plague us in regards to long range planning and disaster capitalism, which was outlined so thoroughly by Naomi Klein.
Living in fragile Florida I see disaster ahead and little to no mitigation. No discussion, as if the inevitable can simply be dismissed and denied.

[Mary Agnes Joens · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really excellent intro to emergency management and disaster studies for the layperson. It's very accessible without ever making the reader feel talked down to, and I love that it ends with not just a call to action but explicit advice and actionable things you can do to get started, as well as additional resources. Montano also does a great job balancing respect/admiration for emergency managers/first responders/volunteers without romanticizing them or their roles and still making sharp critiques of failures in emergency management. Very impressive all around.

Also the audiobook narrator did a 10/10 fabulous job.

[Lach · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a friend of mine, I really need you to read this book. Dr. Montano describes perfectly how I'm feeling about my career right now. If you need to ignore the climate change angle or her political commentary, you'll still walk away from the book with invaluable knowledge about the flaws in emergency management and how to fix it. She's a great writer and obviously extremely knowledge about our industry!

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Every disaster you have yet to experience in your lifetime has already begun.”

This is such a powerful quote. It’s important to understand that disasters don’t happen in vacuums. The decisions we make now will affect future populations. That is why we need to be cognizant about policy decisions not only for today but for the future.

Throughout this book Montano highlights key events in disaster recovery from the last 20 years from Katrina to Maria. The writing was accessible, and the author does a nice job of giving the reader enough background and history about the events discussed.

I received my undergraduate degree in Emergency Management from NDSU, so I was really excited to see the author talking about Fargo, the courses at NDSU, and about the professors I learned from.

Reading this with an EM degree can be frustrating because you understand everything she is talking about, and you can see that the problems we are facing today are not new problems. They are problems we have been dealing with and trying to solve for years! It’s disheartening to read for the nth time that the US is criminally underinsured for disasters, that the process for applying for disaster funds is very difficult, and that all this leads us to be trapped in an unending cycle of recovery. And worst of all it doesn’t really look like it’s going to get any better any time soon.

There is so much passion and expertise in the field of Emergency Management and related fields but there is a disconnect between that expertise and actually executing a well-organized response to a disaster. Even preparedness and mitigation efforts are hard to execute well. The field is not given enough resources with some cities/counties only having volunteer Emergency Managers with little to no funding. And with this new administration what little funding, pull, and respect the field had is being diminished. Just this week, hundreds of NOAA workers have been fired. An article by Evan Bush with NBC stated, “The mass firing – of educated, specialized workers who viewed themselves as the next generation of scientists protecting life and property – could stretch NOAA’s workforce thin and hinder work on programs designed for public safety.” EM needs more funding not less if they are going to have any chance to combat future disasters. We can’t just put our heads in the sand, climate change is here, and it will continue to cause more severe weather anomalies in the years to come.

5 Stars

[Cynthia Cordova · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me preface with: I am a leftist anarchist. I despise the government. But good god this book is nauseatingly liberal and SO preachy even for me. She is constantly shitting on the government (love it) and then says NOT ONE negative thing about nonprofits (hate it). She puts nonprofits on a pedestal without any kind of interrogation of the nonprofit industrial complex and how completely exploitive nonprofits often are. And omg NO mention of how horrible we know Red Cross to be! Whole little area in the book talking about Red Cross and not one mention of why people have started to hate them. And don’t even get me started on her proposals at the end of the book about what you can do to get involved. Can you imagine talking this much shit on the government and still telling people to vote 😭 did I learn some interesting stuff? Def! But good god I wish desperately I had avoided this one. She brings up social justice language left and right but doesn’t talk about how shitty nonprofits are???? Doesn’t talk deeply about the grassroots orgs???? Just yikes. I told a friend about how much I was hating this and they immediately were like…the author white? Lmao my mind hadn’t gone there but now that it’s been pointed out, her privilege does show. Truly idk HOW she studies this and is still like, “call your reps so the govt can save us!” Like???? I’m so annoyed lolololol

[Judd Street · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disasterology is a compelling, well-written, incredibly accessible introduction to the field of disaster studies and emergency management. Centred around Dr. Montano's firsthand experiences (including in post-Katrina rebuilding, the BP oil spill, and a host of other events), it is part memoir and part primer to the subject. It's an easy read while being chock full of content, and something I'd eagerly assign to a first-year emergency management class as a great intro to the field.

It's a courageous book; one where Montano doesn't hold the punches. It's just loaded with biting analysis, like her description of Katrnia as "the inevitable conclusion of our past, and a glimpse of our future... It is the antithesis of white picket fences but, still, as American as apple pie" (p. 38). Indeed, fellow disasterologists will be nodding along as she captures so many perpetual challenges, sore spots, and worries for the future.

A particularly critical theme running throughout the book is the resistance to individualized actions. While Montano does acknowledge that these can have a place, her broader argument is that these download responsibility and culpability in a way that not just frees governments of their duties to care, but perpetuates injustices (e.g, "It was not that people in New Orleans did not care about the environment," Montano argues when comparing environmentalism between her hometown and new college experience, "but that the systems and incentives that had made it easy for us to take these actions in Maine did not exist in Louisiana. The environmentalism I grew up with was one of privilege, void of interrogation of environmental injustice..." (p. 14).) This theme returns in the discussion of emergency kits: "When the response to a disaster doesn't go well, it's not because you don't have enough bottled water stored away in your coat closet. It is because our policies do not prioritize risk reduction and our emergency management system has perpetually been a political bargaining chip that, even at its height, has never received the investment it needs"

Montano's attention to the long antecedent of disaster are particularly apt as well. "Every disaster you have yet to experience in your lifetime has already begun," could well be a tattoo for disaster study researchers; "The threads of risk are spun out over decades, even centuries, until they crescendo into disaster" (p. 101). She reminds us that "...disasters are not freak accidents, they are the inevitable product of the decisions we, or some people, make" (p. 78). I also appreciate Montano's recurring attention to the limitations of quantification (e.g., p. 34-35, where she differentiates between what is often counted as opposed to the needs that go unnoticed).

If I did have a complaint of the book, it would come from the downside of one of its strengths: it's incredibly Ameri-centric. The examples are overwhelmingly domestic and the history focuses on the American experience. This makes the book a very valuable resource... but it does leave some questions unasked that could be illuminated based on experiences elsewhere. For example, Montano highlights the ways that individualism and lack of government involvement/capacity/capability (e.g., limited rebuilding as an intentional strategy, p. 85) dominate the American experience (e.g., "From the day I was born, I was taught that we are responsible for the protection of our own communities. We cannot guarantee government will protect us or that politicians will prioritize our well-being," on p. 22), but we never really see models from elsewhere show the way that strong institutions /can/ provide an alternative model to individuals having to backfill these institutions from the grassroots. There's a tension resting in the book... is the answer to fix these institutions, or is it to lean into a grassroots response (a la "Paradise Built in Hell")?

In the end, Montano challenges us to take up a position of courage rather than hope. Hope doesn't jibe with Camp Ellis, where a model community of collaboration and resilience sees its "permanent solution... [wane] by the day" (p 129). Hope doesn't jibe with a recovery from Katrina that still isn't over, no matter how many times we wanted it to end. Hope doesn't jibe with perpetual disasters; the events that "wear communities down" (p. 143) through their overlap and perpetual throb; that leave communities "tired and low on resources... [with] fatigue [that is] even more dire" (p. 175). Courage - the willingness to fight bravely, even in the absence of hope - is what we need, argues Dr. Montano... a conclusion that feels both disheartening and reassuring as COVID drags on.

[Giordano Margaglio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm clearly biased, but..

This was such an insightful peek into the USA's emergency management system and all of its intricacies, politics, vulnerabilities, trade-offs, and deep-rooted inadequacies. From Katrina to Maria, the BP oil spill to COVID-19, Dr. Montano weaves a seamless narrative between her personal experience of these disasters and their technical analysis and assessment as an emergency manager.

What I loved the most about this read, was how themes such as systemic inequality, racism, and oppression toward marginalized communities were mainstreamed, denounced, and put forth throughout the entire book rather than annexed as an appendix.

"In attributing blame to nature or the supernatural, we avoid interrogating our role in creating these risks. [...] Disasters, and catastrophes, are a choice. They are a political decision."

[MJ Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is well written and clearly researched. The settings are beautifully drawn out and visualized by the reader. The story takes us through Montana’s
Pursuance of emergency management education and volunteer work and the growing climate change. As a disasterologist myself I found myself agreeing with many points in the book however, I also read her bias throughout. Very little perspective or action provided by or for full time emergency managers.

Solid book to recommend to the prospective or green emergency manager.

[Miles Row · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read but distills something that becomes clearer the more I listen to US books. The climate emergency is very much here already. It also explains how competent leaders are hugely important now we are in a period of ever increasing emergencies.

[Brandon Pytel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Born out of the mismanagement in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Disasterology explores the systematic failures of disaster response and recovery and waits in which we can see the problems, too, and take action. The book is part personal narrative, part journalistic, and part analysis, all focused on the interconnectedness of disasterology: the health of our ecosystems, climate change, and destruction from disasters. It focuses on the much-overlooked part of climate change: not the cutting emissions, but what to do about the consequences that are already here.

The book opens with Recovery, which discusses the failures of federal response to Katrina — “the racism, classism, incompetence, corruption, and indifference” — the brokenness that lasts for years, not just the weeks of headlines, and how the United States was very much exposed in its mismanagement of the crisis, and our failure to do anything about it, despite the writing on the wall: “It was designed. Katrina was the inevitable conclusion of our past, and a glimpse of our future.”

It explains the very science of disasterology, how federal governments need to take on an immediate response, and not wait for oft-underresourced local governments, as well as the underlying inequities that made such a broken system and stokes distrust in government and confusion: policy decisions, including “underinvestment in infrastructure, racists.housing policies … and ill-advised post-9/11 changes to emergency management collided with incompetence, bad communication, and poor planning…”

When discussing the complex recovery and flood insurance programs, Montano writes, “It is against the backdrop of this absurd patchwork government-led recovery process that the I formal, do-it-yourself approach to recovery emerged in the city.” This patchwork, combined with the American Way mentality and narratives about pulling oneself up by their bootstraps, leaves out marginalized groups that are often most affected by these disasters.

The second section, Preventing Disaster, explores the decisions made that manufacture disasters, notably, failing to manage risk and making decisions to increase our vulnerability. This can be seen in the collision of nature and technology, the tension between local and federal resources, and the reactive approach we’ve collectively taken, told through the story and future of Camp Ellis, a small seaside town in Maine.

The third section, Disaster, is how people respond to the worst, as well as a helpful history of disasterology its roots in the Red Cross and funneling volunteers and resources toward communities hit hard by extreme events. And the fourth section is about Damage Control, and how climate change is compounding these crises, which will continue to get worse as the planet warms and our racist, classist policies and structures remain unchanged: “climate change paired with these demographic, regulatory, and policy factors are literally a recipe for disaster.”

Part five, Anticipating Disaster, dives deep into a first person narrative of COVID-19, and the governments’ failures in its response, as well as the faulty management and organizational structure that doomed it for failure. The section highlights the need to prepare for the future and take into account future projections when predicting risk, so that we can plan effectively and ensure needs are met.

Finally, Part six cores Disaster Justice, which kicks off with Love Canal, and centers around the protests at Standing Rock, how those protests of a pipeline are connected to New Orleans and Maria — all of which are working to “expose and right the injustices in this system.”

Emergency management requires all of us, writes Montano, and the goal is to simultaneously build its capacity while dismantling inequalities, all while your risk increases, and to do so immediately. It gets a little call-to-actiony, especially with the checklist at the end and the hope that combined feels a little too cookie-cutter for the genre, but overall the book is incredibly informative, focusing much on how we got to our current state of mismanagement and reactionism, the roots of systemic injustice, racism, and classism, and frames it as a thing we need to change, especially up against increasing climate impacts.

[Leila · Rating 3 out of 5]

3
This book was a bit of a disappointment to me.
I think the title ending with -ology and the "dispatches from the front line of the climate crisis" subtitle gave me an incorrect assumption of what this book would consist of. This book isn't particularly academic. Other than a few notable examples (disaster/catastrophe) this book doesn't give the reader an academic vocabulary or framework for discussing or better understanding disasters.
While this book does mention many examples of disasters, they don't really serve to illustrate different points. They are all in the United States (not really what I would consider the "front lines of the climate crisis"). While the author tries to contrast successes and failures of different disasters the actual methods of disaster relief discussed (government aid, local nonaffiliated mutual volunteers, etc.) are all talked about using basically the same terms each time making it really unclear where the book thinks the success came from in the good examples.
For what this book is it is still plenty interesting. It talks a lot about how the author got into climate activism and her career in emergency management. For people curious about that it is interesting, and I am glad a book like this exists. I just feel like the author is holding out a bit on sharing her expertise in this situation. There are a lot of books about how to get into climate activism but not many about disasters and how and why they happen written by experts in the field. I wish this book had leaned more into the unique perspective it could have offered.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed this book--for her first book, Montano did a wonderful job. She did a thorough job describing what exactly emergency management is ("the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters" p 19).
I also greatly enjoyed her subtle dig at new President Biden's Build Back Better plan. Montano writes that terms such as "build back better", "windows of opportunity", and "blank slates" are the language of disaster capitalists. They are meant to manipulate and persuade the public of neoliberal agendas that aren't necessary going to help the actual communities in need; instead, they are terms used to further a government's/politician's agenda. Makes you rethink some things, doesn't it?
This one may become a book on my want-to-buy list.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important work, bringing emergency management to a lay public, and especially highlighting the intersectionality of climate action, environmental justice, emergency management, and other social movements into the possibility of a unified disaster movement appropriate for our 21st century threats. Dr Montano skillfully weaves personal anecdotes into her academic writing to keep the reader engaged, and uses humour effectively.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honest portrayal of emergency management successes and failures around the US through the lens of a disasterologist. From Hurricane Katrina to COVID-19, this book explains how emergency management is supposed to work and the barriers that hinder it from being a success. Told through the author’s stories of local community resilience, Disasterology will reaffirm everything you thought (if you thought it needed some major help) about emergency management and open your eyes to what the world of emergency preparedness could look like if the world was prepared for climate change.

[E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5*

[Shrike58 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book was only published in 2021, it already feels rather dated, since it cuts off at the inauguration of Joe Biden. That said, if you're looking for a memoir of how someone gets involved in the whole field of crisis management as it relates to natural disasters this book might still be useful to you. Apart from that, while I can understand the eye-rolling I've seen in some quarters that this is nothing more than a sanctimonious "good government" tract, there is no denying that we really should be doing better; though what it'll take to knock sense into the heads of the climate-change deniers I dread to imagine.

[Bekah · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a disasterologist myself, this book has some really good points to consider.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty interesting audiobook by an author with a PhD in disasterology, a field I'd never heard of. She was first inspired as a 16-year-old student from Maine on a field trip to help New Orleans after Katrina.

Disaster management is a mostly overlooked subject in the climate crisis. She outlines how to deal with different types of disasters and how the U.S. is wholly unprepared. Apparently, FEMA was once an effective agency until, after 9/11, President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security and stuffed FEMA under that umbrella, stripping it of its power and efficiency. That helps explain FEMA's poor showing in 2005 with Katrina.

There was also a federal pandemic plan and response team during Obama's term. President Trump dismantled the team in 2018. And we all know what happened next.

She explained the difference between disaster, which can be handled locally, and catastrophe, which requires outside help. The catastrophes are becoming more common.

This was an interesting listen as the series of "atmospheric rivers" barraged the West Coast, pummeling my own house with the high winds whipping. No flooding here, thank goodness, but the news looks awful. This book will stick with me.

Recommended!

[Anisha Borthakur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Objectively, this book was easy to comprehend and was very well paced. The storytelling/memoir aspects of the book were emotionally compelling and descriptive. A great introduction to emergency management woven into narratives that many of Americans may either be familiar with or have read through NYT headlines.

Personally, as a millennial emergency manager, the book took all the emotions and logical arguments which have been living in my head for 10+ years and put it into 316 pages. It was like I was reading my brain back at me. If you’re in the field and are already used to thinking at a systems-level, use this book to reinforce why we do what we do. I’ve never felt more ~seen~ through a book before. If you’re an old guard EM who came from the “traditional” background and are struggling to understand your younger colleagues/constituents’ points of view - use this book as a tool to gain some of the perspective which is necessary to have as an emergency manager in our world of constant change.

Everyone, especially emergency managers, would do well to remember that the greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation.

[molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a consistent complaint for me but I find it misleading to subtitle a book, "dispatches from the front lines of the climate crisis" and then only talk about the US. The frontline of the climate crisis is undeniably in the global South, which gets hardly a mention here.

That Western bias aside, it is a really interesting history of emergency management in the US. This might sound dry, but this is the basis on which a lot of the (non)decisions are taken that our future currently hinges upon. It is mixed in with a memoir that is rather straightforwardly told, a story of how activism and altruism ended in an academic career. Learned a lot. I also liked how her book intentionally did not end with a message of hope. That really resonated with my own personal headspace about the whole crisis.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally, a good read, although initially, I kept feeling as though the chapters didn't quite cohere. Re-reading the title helped me to make a mental adjustment, to stop looking for linear flow. Appreciated the personal background on New Orleans and Katrina and other first-hand experiences. Another welcome aspect is the author's straightforward assessment of US disaster readiness, "A more general, and perhaps fundamental problem for national preparedness was that the White House had turned the federal government into a vat of toxic waste." The White House here is the Trump administration. Disasters are in our future and they are multiplying. Making investments now in disaster preparedness and recovery will help.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books this year. This book presents a personal viewpoint by someone who has both scientific background as well as on the ground experience. It is a view of climate change not in most of the books already out there - it is from the viewpoint of the disaster. People and communities affected - how government programs are ineffective and failing for both recovery as well and trying to deal with the impact of future events. It also has additional insight to the shocking incompetence of national leaders toward dealing with disasters or even to prepare for them. Not only are these first hand accounts for several disasters but also a good collection of other documentation and further references.

[Amy Frazier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, written by a self-proclaimed disasterologist, is eye-opening and so important. Samantha Montano studied emergency management and realized very quickly that people had no idea what she was talking about when they asked what she did. (Emergency management brings to mind firefighters or EMTs.) So she started referring to her life's work as disasterology, meaning the study of disasters and how to plan for and mitigate them in the future. This covers the gamut of both man made disasters (the 9/11 tragedy) to natural disasters (Hurricane Catrina, big earthquakes, and large-scale forest fires).

I found Montano smart, interesting, and compelling. Everyone should read this book and use it to formulate their own future emergency plan.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book on climate change per se: it is a book on studying disasters. The study of disasters, or disasterology, includes preparation for possible disasters as well as the response and rebuilding following a disaster. Montano includes many interesting insights into a field with increasing relevance. She is able to remain impartial and neutral, aside from critiquing a leader's response to a disaster or catastrophe (which are not the same thing, I learned). The main section in dealing with climate change is simply to call attention to the fact that disasters are likely to become more commonplace, necessitating a need for more awareness of the study and research that goes into predicting and responding to them.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly educational and enlightening book. While I can see this becoming, in a way, outdated as disaster after disaster occurs (the author managed to squeeze in COVID management thankfully) this is a great recap of the history and failures of disaster management in the US. She could not stress more strongly how important this field is moving forward. The last chapter is incredibly powerful where she provided additional resources to learn more and advice on getting active. Her rejections of "hope" a we know it was profound and the type of rational, empathetic perspective that I'm drawn to as a burgeoning climate communicator myself. I will be referencing this book and recommending it to others for years to come.

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't realize it was part memoir and for this particular book that aspect didn't fully work for me. I was more interested in the disasterology - ways to systems-level plan and prepare and adapt (which was great and my favorite parts). It also had a covid chapter and I have weird covid ptsd where I am actively repelled when I encounter it in a book (although it's very relevant to this topic! I am aware!). But fiction or nonfiction, if covid is in it *shudders*. I had to put the book down for a couple of weeks when I hit that part then I had to put on my big girl pants and finish reading it.

[Tami (agreatbook) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really interesting and engaging look at emergency management, recent climate disasters and a warning of the toll the climate crisis is already playing on our safety nets. I particularly enjoyed Dr. Montano’s storytelling, using her own experiences as an activist and emergency manager to provide insight into how under prepared we are for simultaneous events and how the system we do have is discriminatory to under represented people.

[iavies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amb aquest ampli títol, esperava una revisió de les mesures necessàries per afrontar les crisis dels imminents desastres generats pel canvi climàtic d’una manera més global. En canvi, és un recopilatori, gairebé de notes de diari, explicant les polítiques insuficients de les catàstrofes que l’autora ha viscut en primera persona. Només explica els desastres ocorreguts a Estats Units, especialment fa una exhaustiva anàlisi de l’huracà Katrina de Nova Orleans.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great overview of 1. there being no such thing as a natural disaster and 2. the challenges of disaster recovery and mitigation. I think I spent just as much time chasing the references and growing my reading list as I did with the actual text. And it was a mindfuck finishing the last chapter about organizing and activism and hope this morning as I was getting notifications about the EPA decision.