QRC193 Assessment

Good evening Professor and class. As tasked by this week’s forum below you will find my assessment of QRC193 and how that relates to a given paradigm as well as identification of an associated risk with the case study and how I would mitigate it. First, let’s start with the background concerning Simmons and Sutter’s (2007) research paper.
Simmons and Sutter’s research paper was prompted following the February 2007 tornadoes in Florida. Three tornadoes (two EF-3’s and one EF-1) spawned one after another between 3 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. across three Florida counties; Sumter, Lake, and Volusia respectively. As a result of the tornadoes, 21 fatalities occurred that night, leading researchers to investigate the root cause. Key takeaways were, all three
According to Simmons and Sutter (2007), research was focused on enhancing the use of forecasting and communication methods to prompt protective actions from community members, however, no research was conducted into how this information would be conveyed, especially when considering the affected demographic and the time the incident occurred (p. 1). This line of thinking clearly identifies a behavioral paradigm. According to Smith and Petley (2013), the behavioral paradigm is the consideration of short-term solutions such as forecasting and employment of physical structure/land-use to enhance preparedness and prevention actions (p. 16). Essentially, within the behavioral paradigm, a knee-jerk reaction is prompted to address a catastrophic event which often only produces short-term solutions to the problem, mainly geared to preparedness and prevention, rather than thinking hazard mitigation and long-term solutions i.e. the complexity paradigm. Therefore, following the Florida tornadoes, research and analysis of ways to mitigate losses would have been more appropriate, such as enhancing community resiliency and applying a hazard mitigation methodology focusing on risk analysis and employment of governmental controls to provide long-term solutions. Simmons and Sutter (2007) do just that by presenting collected research on the viability of having residents purchase the NOAA’s Weather Radio. In addition, they identified the potential for establishing shelters and/or altering building codes to further mitigate potential loss (p. 6). Overall, following the tornadoes of 2007, we identified the local community utilizing a behavioral paradigm. Now, let’s examine one of the associated risks within this case study and how we might be able to mitigate