Press Release

David O'Connor
New Era Staff Writer

MU Expert Traveling to Gulf Coast to Find Out What Went Right, Wrong

It would be hard to find any American adult who by now hasn't seen a report or at least an image of people being rescues from the water, of people who died before help arrived, of people going into stores and helping themselves.

But while the dead are beingfound and the work to clean up the coastline of cummunities devasted by Hurricane Katrina begins, there are "lessons that we can learn from this disaster that can benefit everyone the next time around," Henry Fischer said.

And make no mistake about it... homes will be rebuilt and the world is getting more and more populous, so the chances are good there will be another big hurricane some day, and more people will be in its path, Millersville Univeristy professor Fischer said.

And Fischer, director of MU's Center for Disaster Research and Education. wants to gather the information "to try and improve, improve, improve" so officials can prepare and respong to disasters.

He will present information to the National Science Foundation next week on what he learned about the official response to the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean last winter.

America has now had its own tsunami, with many thousands of fatalities expected in the flood-devastated Gulf, and Fischer is working "feverishly" to update his findings from the tsunami in view of the disaster on U.S. shores.

Fischer, a Millersville graduate who returned to MU to teach 16 years ago, became the director of the disaster-research center two years ago.

He has already learned some eye-opening things from the recent hurricane and subsequent flooding.

For example, many people believe looting is common after a disaster, but in fact the opposite is true. Poeple for the most part pull together and help their neighbors after a catastrophe.

So what happened in New Orleans?

Fischer wants to find out, even though he cautions that the televised images focusing on the looting may not be painting a completely accurate picture, because he guesses much of the looting may actually have been done by people just taking things to survive.

Taking a chainsaw from a hardware store that may not reopen for two weeks, so you can chop down a branch and get in a house and save someone, is a lot different than taking one because you "want to say, 'Ha-ha, a chainsaw,'" Fischer said Friday.

"We're talking about a much greater number of people, a much broader damaged area, and a larger impoverished population," he said as CNN played soundlessly on a TV in his office. The CDRE building is in the former ROTC building on the MU campus.

"And we're learning that some things can happen that often don't happen."

Within several weeks, Fischer plans to go to the region devastated by Katrina to interview emergency officials and other responders, so they can be ready next time.

A lot of Americans apparently think emergency officials weren't ready THIS time.

"They never expected such a large disaster," Fischer said, noting people on the Gulf were as overwhelmed as they has been in Thailand, where he went after the tsunami, had been.

"We spend a lot of money in the country to be prepared for these things, even though we have known for decades that something big would happen in New Orleans," if there was a hurricane."

"It's one thing to put it on paper, and another thing to actually implement it," Fischer said.

Some of his work will be gruesome but necessary, to look at how officials are able to cope with such a large number of bodies, with some of it also focusing on how the emergency response....