Eleanor Weber-Burdin

Estimating Hazard Events and Consequences through a Victimization Survey

Every year many lives are lost and much property is damaged by the ravages of natural hazards. There is some evidence, moreover, that the magnitude of these losses, especially to property, has increased substantially in constant dollars in recent years, mainly because economic growth has tended to concentrate more and more persons and property in high-risk areas (Cochrane, 1975; Dacy and Kunreuther, 1969; White and Haas, 1975). In addition, the past decade has produced several very-large-scale disaster events that imposed severe burdens on the public treasury for relief and rehabilitation, for example, Hurricane Agnes in 1973.1 Spurred by these rising costs and by other reasons, federal hazards policy has been shifting away from providing relief and fostering rehabilitation in the aftermath of disasters, and toward developing strategies that are aimed at mitigating hazard risks before disasters strike. Perhaps, in the long run, a vigorous and scientifically informed program of risk mitigation will reduce substantially, as hoped, the need for relief and rehabilitation programs. In the foreseeable future, however, it is likely that policies involving direct relief for and rehabilitation of victims will figure prominently in the repertoire of federal disaster responses.

Deaths, Injuries, Damages, and Total Costs

The total costs to a household of a natural hazard event consist of all the burdens incurred because of the event minus any benefits that may have accrued. When we recognize that the burdens can cover a miscellaneous congeries of troubles, only some of which can be translated into monetary terms, then the task of estimating costs becomes formidable. Benefits present no less a problem for measurement. Indeed, because the benefits from a disaster are likely to be indirect or to occur as side effects, they may be difficult to detect at all.

The Incidence of Hazard Experiences

How many households are victimized by natural hazard events? What kinds of households are especially likely to have such experiences? These are the two main topics of this chapter. To provide a calibrating framework for natural hazard phenomena—floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes—we compared the incidence of such events with household fires and with other unpleasant occurrences.

Natural Hazards Victimization

Existing estimates of the total annual losses from all natural hazards vary from

The Victimization Survey

5 billion to

Patterns of Aid to Hazard Victims

10 billion, counting all costs—direct and indirect, public and private. Although the variation from estimate to estimate is very large, all agree that the annual toll is in the billions. Such estimates typically are constructed by summing across various component costs, some of which may be very precisely known (e.g., Small Business Administration—SB A—disaster loans) and some of which may be charitably regarded as “educated guesses” (e.g., local community expenditures). Perhaps the least well known among the components are the costs that are borne by victimized households, for which no centralized records are maintained by either federal agencies or national private relief organizations.

Natural Hazards and Public Choice: The State and Local Politics of Hazard Mitigation.

Data on victimization by household fires and natural hazards were gathered in two stages, following the general logic of the design discussed in the previous chapter. Previous disaster literature had centered on very selective and possibly unique victim populations (i.e., on the victims of well-publicized disasters). In contrast, we hoped to generate a survey closely approximating a probability sample of the total hazard-victimized population of the United States. Such a population is, of course, unlisted, and no known sampling frame of the requisite scope exists. For these reasons, the first stage of data collection was a very large telephone screening interview, which was used (1) to estimate hazard victimization rates for hazards of various types, and (2) to locate a probability sample of victims for purposes of a more extensive and detailed follow-up questionnaire.

Defining Sexual Harassment on Campus: A Replication and Extension

Although no amount of aid, financial or otherwise, can completely compensate for all the consequences of a major trauma, the restoration of the status quo ante can be aided considerably by various kinds of help. The sources of help and the extent to which they affect the household’s return to normality are the subjects of this chapter. We consider such diverse sources of aid as insurance payments, gifts, and loans, as well as help in goods or services rendered by relatives, friends, and neighbors.