ABSTRACT
One of the cardinal features of human response to natural hazard events is that management changes are intimately associated with crises. The degree of response is not necessarily directly correlated with the magnitude of the physical event, but it is correlated closely with the perception of the damage an event causes, especially if human lives or costly litigation are involved. The history of geomorphological hazards in Los Angeles County (as elsewhere) is very much a sequence of crises and responses, in which the crises are the crucible of change and the principal means by which scientific understanding of the phenomena is increased.
