Cordner Alissa
Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave, Walla Walla, WA 99362 USA.
Qual Sociol. 2021;44(2):313-335. doi: 10.1007/s11133-020-09470-z. Epub 2021 Feb 16.
As climate change increases the frequency and severity of disasters, and population and social changes raise the public's vulnerability to disaster events, societies face additional risk of multiple disaster events or other hazards occurring simultaneously. Such hazards involve significant uncertainty, which must be translated into concrete plans able to be implemented by disaster workers. Little research has explored how disaster managers incorporate different forms of knowledge and uncertainty into preparations for simultaneous hazards or disaster events, or how front-line disaster workers respond to and implement these plans. In this paper I draw on ethnographic research working as a wildland firefighter, interviews with firefighters and fire managers, and state and agency planning documents to examine preparations for two events occurring in Central Oregon in August 2017: (1) the height of wildfire season and (2) hundreds of thousands of anticipated visitors for a total solar eclipse. I find that different qualities of risk, hazard, and uncertainty across these two events were central to the development and implementation of disaster plans. Agency leaders devised worst-case scenario plans for the eclipse based on uncertain predictions regarding hazards from the eclipse and the occurrence of severe wildfires, aiming to eliminate the potential for unknown hazards. These plans were generally met with skepticism by front-line disaster workers. Despite the uncertainties that dominated eclipse-planning rhetoric, firefighters largely identified risks from the eclipse that were risks they dealt with in their daily work as firefighters. I conclude by discussing implications of these findings for conceptual understandings of disaster planning as well as contemporary concerns about skepticism and conspiracy theories directed at government planning and response to disaster events.
随着气候变化增加了灾害的频率和严重程度，以及人口和社会变化提高了公众对灾害事件的脆弱性，社会面临着多重灾害事件或其他危害同时发生的额外风险。此类危害涉及重大的不确定性，必须转化为灾害应对人员能够实施的具体计划。很少有研究探讨灾害管理者如何将不同形式的知识和不确定性纳入同时发生的危害或灾害事件的准备工作中，或者一线灾害应对人员如何响应并执行这些计划。在本文中，我利用作为一名野外消防员的人种志研究、对消防员和火灾管理人员的访谈以及州和机构的规划文件，来审视2017年8月在俄勒冈州中部发生的两件事的准备情况：（1）野火季节的高峰期，以及（2）预计会有成千上万游客前来观看日全食。我发现，这两件事在风险、危害和不确定性方面的不同特质，对于灾害计划的制定和实施至关重要。机构领导人基于对日全食危害和严重野火发生的不确定预测，为日全食制定了最坏情况预案，旨在消除未知危害的可能性。这些预案普遍遭到一线灾害应对人员的怀疑。尽管日全食规划言辞中充斥着不确定性，但消防员在很大程度上识别出了日全食带来的风险，而这些风险正是他们作为消防员在日常工作中所应对的。最后，我将讨论这些发现对于灾害规划概念理解的意义，以及当代针对政府灾害规划和应对的怀疑论及阴谋论的相关问题。
