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seanw146

Emergency responders were not the main focus of the film but were portrayed as having to deal with difficult situations that they had little real control over, mostly because the state was portrayed as trying to do the right thing but making things worse. The consequences of the government fell on the emergency workers. The doctors and responders had to risk personal safety and had to deal with people not trusting them and ignoring their requests.

pece_annotation_1474904798

seanw146

The purpose of the article is to underscore the difficulties and importance of post-disaster research investigation into why exactly the structural collapse of the towers happened. Dr. Knowles does this by looking into the cause, investigation, and aftermath of several historical building catastrophes in the US.   These cases have reveal how politics, public, and private entities contributed to the disasters and what tends to happen in the aftermath. In the case of the World Trade Center, Dr. Knowles identifies the main reasons for the structures failing and how other sky scrapers are susceptible to the same attack. 

pece_annotation_1476076504

seanw146

The main argument of the article is “Chronic disaster syndrome” stems from three problems: first the long-term effects of personal trauma, second the disruption of the smooth functioning of their way of life, and third the permanent displacement of depressed populations from the social landscape.