All disasters are not created equal
A professor-student research team from
the College of Agricultural, Consumer
and Environmental Sciences compared
how rural and urban communities
prepared for disasters by interviewing
coordinators of Illinois Community
Emergency Response Teams (CERTs).
Courtney Flint (left), a rural
sociologist and assistant professor of
natural resources and environmental
sciences, and her undergraduate student
researcher, Joanne Rinaldi, found that
the 175 CERTs that existed before 9/11
had grown to 2,435 nationally. While
many initially focused on terrorism, they
have broadened their
definition of disasters
to include weather
events, transportation
accidents and
hazardous materials.
While urban
responders play a
coordination role
because of the
availability of first responders such as
police and fire departments, rural CERTs
are of necessity more self-reliant.
"Farm families have to keep going," Flint
said. "They can't wait for someone to
flip the switch. They are more prepared
for disaster. They have generators,
kerosene heaters, snow plows and other
equipment."
And while urban CERTs have more
professional responders, Flint and
Rinaldi discovered the rural CERTSs
depended on each other more. What
effective responders to both urban
and rural disasters have in common
is understanding an individual
CERTs' role in its community
and its relationship with other first
responders.
Resources are often an issue, Rinaldi
said. "Funding consistency or a lack
of sufficient funds was a common
issue for the majority of CERTs."
Rinaldi said her participation in
the CERTs research opened the
door to "where I really wanted to go
with my academic and professional
interests." She currently has a job at
the University of Dundee geography
department in Scotland working on
flood hazards. She's applying
to graduate school in geography
or urban/rural planning with a
hazards focus.
Flint is working on a national
database of active CERTs so they
can communicate and learn from
each others' experience.
Reporting: Debra Levey Larson, College of ACES News and Public Affairs
