A New System for Disaster Research

By Lori Peek

Connecting researchers, building networks, and training newcomers to the field can disrupt cycles of disaster loss.

Communications Environment Ethics Policy Sociology Social Science

This Article From Issue

July-August 2022

Volume 110, Number 4

Page 226

DOI: 10.1511/2022.110.4.226

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In October 2006, I traveled to New Orleans for a research project focused on Hurricane Katrina’s impact on children. While there, my friend and colleague who had lost her apartment in the storm, Rachel E. Luft, offered to give me a tour of her FEMA trailer and the park where it sat alongside hundreds of other such units. She could have showed me the entirety of her cramped living quarters in just a few minutes.

People converge after disaster, and researchers are no exception. Here, engineers from the StEER (Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance) Network assess damage from Hurricane Dorian. StEER is a component of CONVERGE, an organization the author launched in 2018. In the past, researchers from different disciplines studying the same event had no system to coordinate data collection. CONVERGE is building the infrastructure for such cross-disciplinary coordination. When structural engineers see something relevant to social scientists, for example, they can now quickly find and contact experts who can help.

**Steve Pece / www.peceofmind.com**

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