Leadership in Disaster Learning for a Future with Global Climate Change

Disasters occur when hazards of nature strike socio-technological vulnerabilities. While science provides valuable indications of risk, it does not yield certainty, yet leaders must make sense of threats. Raymond Murphy's case study of the management of the 1998 ice storm - the most costly disaster ever in Canada, northern New York state, and Maine - presents rare interviews with key political and emergency management leaders that provide an insider's view of the challenge of responding to extreme weather. They document a generally well managed crisis, but also reveal the slippery slope from transparency to withholding critical information as the crisis deepened, and examine conflict resolution between leaders during a disaster.