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I teach anthropology and environmental studies at Haveford College, just outside of Philly. Currently, I'm holed up in a cabin in the Adirondacks in upstate New York with several family members, including my spouse and 4 year old daughter and 3 dogs. I started working on disasters by accident, when one day in 2001 I was walking to class at NYU and saw the World Trade Center buildings on flames. I have known Kim for a few year and I contacted her to connect with folks around Covid-19 and its imacts.

I'm particularly intersted in issues of communal grief, mourning, and bereavement. Also, I'm interested in the religious response to Covid-19.

Perspectives of public health officials, goverment workers (excluding the president), and international aid organizations such as doctors with out borders and the united nations (both of which are depicted), are not included in the film. More scholarly perspectives are also not included.

Thus policy is department specific, and while the article does not expressly state it, it was likely drafted and put into place by the Bethel Township Fire Department. 

This arguement is supported by looking at 4 specific case histories and examining the factors contributing to the investigations in each.

1. The 1814 Burning of the Capitol Building - Investigation of the disaster conducted by one engineer, B.H. Lathobe, who was given vast resources with very few obsticles, except for financial constraits and an impatient congress, to complete his investigation and reconstruct the building. 

2. 1850 Hauge St. Explosion - After a major boiler explosion in Manhattan's Lower East Side, a pannel of "jurrors" and "experts" were called together to complete investigations, bring forth the history of the fauty boiler, and place the blame for the accident in an effort to "memorialize the dead and bring them justice." Because of the way this investigation was conducted, the blame could not be accurately placed so everyone involved was blamed for the failure.

3. 1903 Iroquois Theater Fire - John Ripley Freeman, a fireproof engineering expert and factory inspector, was brought in to complete a report and provided one of the first "modern" scientific disaster investigations. He utilized a new network of investigators, engineers, insurance companies, testing labs, and inter-industry coordination that characterizes modern disaster investigation. 

The program is funded in most part by Brown University, and research funding is suplimented by various grants applied for by individual researchers.

This article focuses on "chronic disaster syndrome," a condition that arises in the aftermath of a large scale disaster where factors from the disaster lead to perminant changes in the lives of those effected. These changes include physical and mental health crises, geographic displacement, loss of life, family, community, jobs, and property, and societal instability. The causes of these conditions are not only limited to the disaster itself but they are also by the how goverments and private sector institiutions either support recovery or put up road blocks to prevent a return to normal, perpetuating the emergency into the future.