Legal Commentary

I write about disaster law and policy and have a few projects cooking that I may share with you over the next few weeks. My overarching goal is to identify a normative legal framework that can guide efforts to fortify communities before and to rebuild after disaster.

The starting point, as others who write in this area have noted, is to recognize that disasters almost always cause disproportionate harm to those who are already disadvantaged ? tornados, for instance, don?t just materialize at mobile home parks, and it?s no accident that the hardest hit areas of New Orleans during Katrina were also the poorest. Whether the disaster is a flood, hurricane, fire, tornado, or riot, preexisting social inequality and vulnerability predicts how severe and how lasting the damage will be. Accordingly, how a society grapples with disaster tells us a lot about its commitment to social justice.