Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts on Society - Climate Science ...

THE US HURRICANE PROBLEM
of their problem definition over others. Therefore, agreement on a problem
definition by a broad range of participating individuals <strong>and</strong> groups facilitates
efforts to act. Any analysis that recommends alternative actions to ameliorate
a problem -' such as lessons from a hurricane -will benefit from explicit
definition of the problem to be addressed, including objectives to be achieved
<strong>and</strong> how we might measure progress or lack thereof.
2.1.2 The conventional framing of the US hurricane problem
Conventional definitions of the hurricane problem facing the United States
tend to focus on human casualties <strong>and</strong> property damage related to hurricane
impacts. For example, the American Meteorological Society has stated that
"the primary goal of both research <strong>and</strong> operational groups is to minimize loss
of life from hurricanes" (AMS 1993). The Director of the National Hurricane
Center testified before Congress: "we need action now to prepare for a return
to more frequent major hurricane events in order to minimize life <strong>and</strong> property
loss" (Sheets, 1994, emphasis added; cf. Sheets 1995; Simpson <strong>and</strong> Riehl 1981;
Brinkmann 1975). The general goals of US hurricane policy that derive from
the conventional definition of the hurricane problem are thus to minimize
casualties <strong>and</strong> costs associated with hurricanes.
As a policy objective, "minimizing loss of life <strong>and</strong> property" is not a very
useful way of framing the goal of US hurricane policy for the following two
reasons (cf. Shabman 1994). First, the concept of "minimizing" sets no
casualties <strong>and</strong> no property losses as the ultimate policy success. However, a full
accounting of the costs <strong>and</strong> benefits of hurricane preparedness may find that
elimination of all casualties <strong>and</strong> damages is too costly to achieve. In many
cases calls for the minimization of loss of life <strong>and</strong> property damage often
contain an implicit qualification "subject to the constraints of available funds,
other resources, <strong>and</strong> technical <strong>and</strong> physical possibilities". These are important
considerations that improve upon this particular problem definition, but
because of the tendency to focus on the objectives of minimization of economic
<strong>and</strong> human losses the qualifications are not always explicitly considered
in practice.
A second reason why "minimizing loss of life <strong>and</strong> property" is not a
particularly useful manner in which to frame the goal of US hurricane policy
is that it is not clear what "minimization" means in practice: in the language
of economics it is an "optimizing problem" that involves "multi-objective
planning" <strong>and</strong> is "the way the objective function of the hurricane problem
must be framed" (see Pielke (1997». However, framing the goal of US
hurricane policy in this manner reduces it to a largely academic exercise <strong>and</strong>
places conceptual obstacles between the definition of the problem <strong>and</strong> the
conditions which it represents, especially for the vast majority of people who
deal with the hurricane-related issues on a day-to-day basis. These people
often do not have expertise in "optimizing problems" or "objective functions".
35