**2.7 Vulnerability**

*Natural Hazards - Impacts, Adjustments and Resilience*

*The school gymnasium was packed with wet bodies. A kind of bored panic filled the air. After all, what more could they do but wait for the worst the storm threw at* 

*"Thanks for being here, I know it's been hard for everyone. And there's still lots of work to do to clean up after yesterday's catastrophe" said Ros, the town's mayor, referring to the wind that had blown off parts of a few roofs, and torn off a main* 

*Ian spoke up, "we can't worry about yesterday's fiasco. We gotta think about the crisis we're gonna be in tomorrow if the power's not back. Then it will be a real* 

flood, or fire. But only thinking in terms of characteristics of the event — windspeed, the size of tsunami wave, the magnitude of an earthquake, etc. — is to neglect a critical component. To become relevant to disaster management, nature must collide with human activity [10]. Hazards can be quantified simplistically as the probability of an event occurring, causing harm [11]. And there is no separating hazard from risk and resilience [12]. So the hazard is the oncoming storm and the

Our first thought when we think of a hazard will often be an event—earthquake,

Risk is connected choice and probability [11]. Choice by the decisions we make.

We build in flood zones, we develop seaside resorts, and we ignore all but the

*limb of the biggest cedar in town, crushing a corner of J. Z.'s corner store.*

*them and then pick up the pieces when it blew itself out?*

potential for harm to the village it approaches (**Figure 2**).

*Monday:*

*emergency!"*

**2.5 Hazard**

**2.6 Risk**

**6**

**Figure 2.**

*Hazard, risk, and vulnerability illustrated.*

Vulnerability will create harm from the hazard. A predisposition to be harmed, intrinsic to the organization or organism is its vulnerability [11]. Poverty, age, gender, racial identification, geography, and many social, economic, and political factors are all parts. The vulnerability can accumulate until recovery is complete [12].
