By ARIADNE WILL
Special to the Sentinel
Neal Axton, Graduate Engagement and Government Information Librarian at Kansas University, spoke to Sitka Rotarians Tuesday afternoon about disaster prevention and response.
Axton, who also teaches a course on disaster law at KU, joined the group of Sitkans via Zoom for his presentation.
He explained that a disaster occurs when human vulnerability and a threat – such as a natural disaster or a human-made error – collide.
To combat these threats, people have created a system to react to disasters, called All Hazards Preparedness.
Axton said that this is a system that works well in cases where there is infrastructure damage, but said the system is ineffective when a pandemic hits.
“Pandemics really break the ‘All Hazards Preparedness’ paradigm because typically, all your infrastructure is still there,” he said. “The people are gone.”
Axton also discussed how small events often compound to create emergencies.
To demonstrate, he referenced the 2011 tsunami that led to the Fukushima nuclear meltdown.
“What I’m interested in is the cascading effect,” he said.
In the case of Fukushima, this meant that the tsunami, the engineering failure at the nuclear power plant and the proximity of both events to a populated area aligned.
“All of these things have to line up,” Axton said. “Sometimes you start with something very small.”
He said that it’s when a cascade of events takes place that a disaster materializes.
Axton said that before disasters happen – and after they have subsided – there is often opportunity to take preventative measures. He said that because of this, the COVID-19 pandemic can be used as a learning experience.
“It’s during recovery and rebuilding that we have this opportunity to prevent (future disasters),” he said.
Axton said he supports providing better health care in the wake of this pandemic. He said, too, that he believes COVID-19 could be the precursor of an even greater global catastrophe.
“COVID is just a warning,” he said. “I think this is our opportunity to beef up our public health infrastructure.”
Bigger threats, Axton said, could include other diseases that affect the respiratory system.
Since COVID-19 is a virus that has been shown to weaken the lungs, Axton said humanity could see the return of diseases such as tuberculosis. These diseases could be devastating if the population isn’t vaccinated, he said.
“What if the COVID pandemic just primes us for a second pandemic to run through,” he asked. “What are the costs of letting COVID run through the population?”
He said that preparing for a greater disaster is difficult because it’s a “slow emergency.”
“It’s very easy to focus on the fast disasters only and not plan for these long-term emergencies,” Axton said. “We want a society that can bounce back from these disasters, from these pandemics.”
