Both sources agree that human error incorporates slips, lapses and mistakes, which are distinguished from one another by the nature of the interactions between individual intentions and actions. Errors can occur in the skill, rule, or knowledge domains, and may manifest themselves immediately (active errors) or at some time in the future (latent).

Errors, by their nature, are unforeseen events, usually accompanied by (and detected as a consequence of) their unwanted effects. Their unforeseeability is typically characterized from the perspective of the person responsible for the behavior from which they result, but this does not exclude the consequences from being equally unexpected by others. Insofar as this definition incorporations errors of intention not otherwise accompanied by errors of execution, it allows for the possibility that the consequences are more unforeseen and therefore less desirable from the perspective of others than the person responsible due to a failure to accurately reflect or accommodate their expectations.

I hope this executes my intention of clarifying my use of the term failure, and in doing so meets your expectations.

Mark

As far as Haiti, offered 8,000 portable water purification units just after the 12 Jan and a practical and permanent housing solution w/solar and rainwater retention package…yet to distribute while the Haitians sit in the mud as rainy season means more anguish.

I agree if in Charleston versus New Orleans or Haiti, a differing response. Isn’t it intersting that China had six-hundred relief workers on the ground so quickly now watching the US, EU and global efforts turn their cheek and the Chinese making strides everywhere.

In Africa, where my representation is substantial in providing expert teams capable of addressing $50million-$250million wastewater and water purification development projects and not a call despite offering the same for Haiti. Working with the International Red Cross and Southern Command, hats off to these folks for their earnest efforts to manuever the void in political leadership and outright corruption. Infrastructure development, housing all a necessity now! (I – we – can’t expect much from the US Congress in cohesive, bi-partisan decison making and whether Homeland Security folks or anyone else who can protect these idiots, security should be heightened for the ongoing talk here on Main Street USA everywhere you go is so derogatory towards the “entrusted” legislators….)

Paul Farmer standing in the rain in Haiti, not Al Gore, should receive the Nobel Prize. He’s just not political enough!

Far too many lawyers and not enough scientists and engineers engaged in decision-making roles. We are bankrupt, a nation so divided and the hens are on a rampage determined to cast out in the next election, those responsible for doing what the people asked….Isn’t is intersting that Uncle Teddy and Uncle Johnny (Kerry) turned their cheek to the $16billion+ “Big Dig” to repair and rebuild seven miles of Boston’s inner roadways and people are in shock that to rebuild Haiti may cost $14billion –

Politics is surely local!

We have failed so blatently in education, economics, housing, and so on and so forth and the fertilizer being dropped at the local, to state, to national issues only see our great Republic in much peril and the world destined to much broader strife, War!

God Bless America!

Christopher Tingus
Harwich, MA 02645

We know recovery is not understood, researched, or implemented effectively. What can we all do about it?

If you’re asking me what lessons I would take from Katrina, I am not your guy. For starters, I was overseas and have no direct experience of that disaster, its aftermath, or the response and recovery efforts. Besides, as I’m trying to make clear, I’m not much of a fan of looking to things that went wrong for ideas about how to do things right.

I much prefer to look at efforts that have proven more or less successful. Charleston, SC’s response to and recovery from Hurricane Hugo strike me as a good example of this sort of situation.

It might be of help just to review also the fact that the American legal system with its tort regime [a tort is a civil injury inflicted on someone for which compensation is owed]has created spillover effects in its chain of causation analysis just as the world of science “Cause and effect” underpinnings of the scientific method.
What is that “tort” regime?
First, that a standard of care is owed the public or its members!
Second, that there has been a violation of that standard of care!
Third, that there has been an injury!
Fourth, that the injury was caused by the violation of the standard of care!
Fifth, that the breech of the standard of care can be calculated as measure of the damages caused by that breech–in other words how much of the injury relates to the standard of care? And of course one of the leading defenses of tort liability–contributory negligence by the person injured.
All of the above discussion can be paralled to some degree to Mark’s analysis except perhaps the grieving and atonement portions. But when dealing with humanity those factors must as Mark suggests be accomodated.
What unfortunately is often made clear during a disaster is that economic benefits provided to certain portions of our society were NOT returned in developing more community resilience but in fact undermined reslience. Installation and retrofitting of hurricane straps on roof joints is one tiny tiny indicator of how mitigation efforts are often avoided for the most miniscule of costs.

Again having once again learned more about Hait–my finding out that not a single water or sewer treatment plant existed in country BEFORE the earthquake makes me realize that most of the aid given by bilateral aid or even multilateral development aid was designed by those with bondholders in mind not the people of Haiti. Look again to Haiti because Mark’s analysis in this post stands up very well there. And of course my conclusion is that an international standard of care–called human rights–has long been violated in Haiti by its own leadership and by the international community especially the US. There clearly are exceptions like Paul Farmer, Harvard M.D. and PhD, Partner In Health that utilizes Haitians to the extent possible- but the number of those visiting the disaster and not working the disaster seems problematic. When will the people and government of the US see Haiti as a US domestic disaster? tttoaaueweerwerea