Yesterday the House Science Committee held a hearing on the role of social science research in disaster preparedness and response. Here are some excerpts from the prepared testimony:

Susan Cutter (PDF): “The Hurricane Katrina crisis was precipitated by a physical event, but it was the failure of social and political systems that turned the natural disaster into a human catastrophe. As a nation, we need to understand the human decisions and organizational failures that contributed to this disaster so it won’t happen again. We need an independent review of the local, state, and federal responses to Hurricane Katrina so we can learn the lessons of what went right and what went wrong in the response and use these to improve our preparedness and responses to future disasters. The social science disaster research community is ready and willing to step up to this challenge and participate in such an independent review. Are you willing to authorize one?”

Shirley Laska (PDF): “I was not participating in some abstract intellectual exercise during the last few years as I was drawing from my own and others’ existing research to warn professional group after professional group of an impending Katrina. The result of those warnings not being heeded was the end of my community. And as our warnings were accurate, this doom assessment of the impact is not hyperbole. Recovery of coastal Louisiana from hurricanes Katrina and Rita is in my opinion uncertain. We do not yet know if we have the family, organizational and governmental resources, ability and energy to accomplish it. And the cost to the society is astronomical. This is the outcome of scientists not being heard. And it doesn’t get any more personal for a scientist than Katrina has been for me.”