Summary
Charles Perrow is famous worldwide for his ideas about normal accidents, the notion that multiple and unexpected failures--catastrophes waiting to happen--are built into our society's complex systems. In The Next Catastrophe, he offers crucial insights into how to make us safer, proposing a bold new way of thinking about disaster preparedness. Perrow argues that rather than laying exclusive emphasis on protecting targets, we should reduce their size to minimize damage and diminish their attractiveness to terrorists. He focuses on three causes of disaster--natural, organizational, and deliberate.
Contents
Part 1. Introduction and Natural Disasters – 1. Shrink the targets – 2. “Natural” disasters? –
Part 2. Can Government Help? – 3. The government response: the first FEMA – 4. The Disaster after 9/11: the Department of Homeland Security and a new FEMA –
Part 3. The Disastrous Private Sector – 5. Are terrorists as dangerous as management? The Nuclear plant threat – 6. Better vulnerability through chemistry – 7. Disastrous concentration in the national power grid – 8. Concentration and terror on the Internet –
Part 4. What Is to Be Done? – 9. The Enduring sources of failure: organizational, executive, and regulatory – Appendix A. Three types of redundancy – Appendix B. Networks of small firms.