ABSTRACT
Issue What factors inuence how public ocials and agencies and businesses understand the nature of hazards and their impacts?
Introduction Disasters are natural-and human-caused events that have the potential to cause damage to a community, region, or a nation. Events associated with a disaster can overwhelm response resources and have damaging economic, social, or environmental impacts. e capacity of a community, region, or nation to deal with disaster impacts provides a basis for characterizing and classifying an event as a crisis that must be addressed by local resources or that requires outside assistance and support. e process of assessing the nature and impacts of hazards as well as strategies for mitigating or adapting to potential adverse impacts from a disaster is the foundation of hazards analysis. Hazards analysis provides a comprehensive fact base for the development of emergency preparedness, response and recovery plans as well as the establishment of comprehensive community goals and public policies. Unfortunately, few communities have established a comprehensive hazards analysis framework that lead to sustainable and resilient communities (Shoubridge 2012).
