After Quarantelli died, in 2017—at age ninety-two, a colossus of the field—a former student would remember hopping a flight to an earthquake-stricken region of Nicaragua and listening to Quarantelli lay out what he should expect to find once he got on the ground. The student was confused; Quarantelli spoke with a kind of offhanded authority, like he’d already been to Nicaragua and witnessed the scene for himself. He hadn’t, of course—the quake had only just occurred. But for Quarantelli, these kinds of random disasters had become some of the least surprising things on earth.
