| People have struggled with responses to emergencies as far back as, in legend at least, Noah's Ark. In modern times, the concept of an integrated emergency management system has been promoted. Yet, such systems have repeatedly failed.; Logically, several reasons offer themselves for the lack of fit between designed systems response and the demands of natural emergencies: one, design theory may be wrong; two, the facts of disaster may be, by nature, resistant to theoretic patterning--they may be random; three, theory may be possible and facts amenable, but investigators or responders do a bad job fitting theory to facts or facts to theory.; The present investigation into this problem of fit tests the appropriateness of a theory addressing two of these possibilities: the theory of Louise R. Comfort that a priori theory and response design is inappropriate to the nature of disaster, and, that what is needed is an in situ learning theory and learning design, in which patterns of response are ongoingly modified to suit empirical developments.; In addition, the present study offers an innovation to Comfort's theory: the possibility that past information, recollected by individuals reflecting on a disaster experience--oral history--can be used as a surrogate for in situ feedback to develop more appropriate predisaster planning.; The testing of Comfort's learning theory is accomplished by comparing actual disaster response in the Black Hills Flood of 1972 to what disaster response would logically have been, if people's experiences had been elicited on site by a response based on learning theory.; Finally, an expansion of Comfort's theory is offered as the major theoretical contribution to research. |
