Raymond Murphy is emeritus professor of sociology, University of Ottawa, president of the Environment and Society Research Committee of the International Sociological Association, and the author of numerous books, including Social Closure and Rationality and Nature.

Texte du rabat

Environmental disasters occur when natural hazards strike areas of socio-technological vulnerability. We expect our leaders to prepare for such threats, but they must do so using current science, which provides valuable indications of risk but not certainty. Raymond Murphy's study of the management of the 1998 ice storm - the most costly environmental disaster ever for Canada and the states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and northern New York - uses rare interviews with key political and emergency management leaders to provide an insider's view of the challenge of responding to extreme weather. While documenting a generally well-managed crisis, the interviews also reveal the slippery slope from transparency to withholding information that developed as the crisis deepened, and examine how conflict is resolved between leaders during a disaster.

Résumé
How leaders respond when technological successes create vulnerability and nature ceases to be motherly.