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(c) Copyright Touchstone Consulting Group
On behalf of the National Academies’
Committee on Public Response to Alerts and Warnings using Social Media, I want to let AWARE readers know about an upcoming workshop on the role of social media in alerts, warnings, and crises.
The workshop, sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, will be held February 28-29 at the National Academy of Sciences’ Beckman Center in Irvine, California. The committee wanted to ensure that the emergency management community is aware of this event and hopes that those interested will be able to attend.
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Scientists who research natural hazards walk a precarious line when it comes to predicting disasters. They’re often criticized for over-hyping the situation and disrupting residents’ lives. But if they fail to predict a catastrophic event, they’re accused of failing to give the public adequate warning. It’s a classic case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
“Damned if you don’t” is the situation that seven of Italy’s top seismologists now find themselves in — the scientists face manslaughter charges for failing to predict the April 2009 earthquake that struck the town of L’Aquila in central Italy.
