Introduction

I have created this blog to examine and discuss the human response to nature's fury. While there are numerous blogs exploring the scientific aspects of natural phenomena, I have not found many whose main focus is on the toll events like hurricanes, tornados, blizzards, earthquakes and other such events take on the ordinary people in their path. I have always been fascinated by Mother Nature's little mood swings and the ways in which governments, scientists and ordinary people respond to and cope with them. As evidenced by all the needless deaths of the 2005 hurricane season, it seems to me that saving lives will require more than just better science. It will also require a deeper understanding of the ways in which people think about, prepare for and cope with these events. There are many questions to be answered. For example, when we know a hurricane/typhoon is coming, how can we best word forecasts and warnings to have the maximum impact on people? Why don't people adequately prepare for the dangers inherent to their particular locale? What are the best ways governments can help people recover? What can we all do to best help each other and ourselves deal with natural disasters? I have no professional qualifications to address these questions myself, but I do have a very keen interest in the subject and hope to include links to news and web sources with information that might at least scratch the surface in improving my own understanding of the psychology of people and nature. As with the majority of blogs out there, this is most definitely a work in progress, and there are certain to be many changes to this blog over the coming months, but I would like to begin by warmly welcoming interested readers and hope we all can achieve greater understanding of our response to nature.