"This volume provides important insights from the nation's leading experts on how we, as a community and nation, should be rethinking disaster assessment, prevention, and mitigation. Policymakers, legislators, business leaders, and scholars: this is a must-read."

Ronald J. Daniels is Provost and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published widely, including Rethinking the Welfare State: The Prospects for Government by Voucher (with Michael Trebilcock) and The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill (coedited with Patrick Macklem and Kent Roach). Donald F. Kettl, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, has written or edited System under Stress: Homeland Security and American Politics, The Global Public Management Revolution, The Politics of the Administrative Process (with James W. Fesler), The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for the 21st Century, among many other books. Howard Kunreuther is Professor and Codirector of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. His has written or coedited a number of books, including Catastrophe Modeling: A New Approach to Managing Risk (with Patricia Grossi) and Wharton on Making Decisions (with Stephen Hoch). Amy Gutmann is the eighth President of the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Why Deliberative Democracy? (with Dennis Thompson), Identity in Democracy, Democratic Education, Democracy and Disagreement (with Dennis Thompson), and Color Conscious (with K. Anthony Appiah). Her reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Times Literary Supplement, Washington Post, and other general publications.

Foreword
—Amy Gutmann

Introduction
—Ronald J. Daniels, Donald F. Kettl, and Howard Kunreuther

PART ONE: THE CHALLENGE OF THE GULF
On Their Own in Battered New Orleans
—Peter G. Gosselin
Using Risk and Decision Analysis to Protect New Orleans against Future Hurricanes
—Detlof von Winterfeldt
Planning for a City on the Brink
—Kenneth R. Foster and Robert Giegengack
JARring Actions that Fuel the Floods
—Carolyn Kousky and Richard Zeckhauser

PART TWO: THINKING ABOUT RISK
Behaviorally Realistic Risk Management
—Baruch Fischhoff
Rationales and Instruments for Government Intervention in Natural Disasters
—Michael J. Trebilcock, and Ronald J. Daniels
Social Inequality, Hazards, and Disasters
—Kathleen Tierney
Equity Analysis and Natural Hazards Policy
—Matthew D. Adler

PART THREE: PRIVATE SECTOR STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING RISK
Why We Under-Prepare for Hazards
—Robert J. Meyer
Has the Time Come for Comprehensive Natural Disaster Insurance?
—Howard Kunreuther
Rethinking Disaster Policy After Hurricane Katrina
—Scott E. Harrington
Providing Economic Incentives to Build Disaster-Resistant Structures
—Harvey Ryland

PART FOUR: THE GOVERNMENT'S ROLE IN DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE
Role of Public Health and Clinical Medicine in Preparing for Disasters
—Brian Strom
Hurricane Katrina as a Bureaucratic Nightmare
—Vicki Bier
The Katrina Breakdown
—Jonathan Walters and Donald F. Kettl

Acknowledgments
Contributors