In Genesis 6:11-9:19, God tips off Noah with the famous forecast of 40 days and nights of rain, but ever since then, we’ve been pretty much on our own when it comes to dealing with earthquakes, hurricanes and floods. Had we been a more prudent species, humans would have built strong structures away from faults, riverbanks and oceans, and kept schools and hospitals far from power plants. Instead, we piled onto floodplains, nestled homes practically alongside oil refineries and crowded all around the San Andreas fault.
I’ve been trying for decades to make sense of the paradox of the developed world’s economically designed but disaster-prone built environment. So I welcome Michel Bruneau’s new book, The Blessings of Disaster: The Lessons That Catastrophes Teach Us and Why Our Future Depends on It (Prometheus, 474 pages). A distinguished professor of engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo, his academic studies and writings range widely and include three well-received novels.