Katrina Spurs Geology Professor to Shift Course Focus

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Aug. 29., the day that Hurricane Katrina barreled ashore on the Gulf Coast, also was the first day of class for Geology 428/528, "Preventing Geologic Disasters," at the University at Buffalo.

Even though he had already prepared a semester's worth of historical examples, Michael F. Sheridan, Ph.D., UB professor of geology, decided that day to ditch much of it and to focus, instead, on Katrina as the harshest of case studies.

"This course is one of the most exciting I've ever taught," said Sheridan, who has spent four decades mapping hazards from active volcanoes around the world so that civil authorities know how and when to evacuate populations.

"This is a real case," he said. "None of our material is coming from textbooks or the peer-reviewed literature. We're all following it along together, getting the information as it develops from the media."

This semester, the course is filled to capacity, nearly tripling its previous enrollment to 23, a fact that Sheridan attributes to interest in last year's tsunami, since many of the students registered last semester.

And while the course covers physical phenomena of hazards that are not preventable, Sheridan calls the course "Preventing Geologic Disasters" because the resulting disaster generally can be prevented or mitigated.

"We can see how aspects of this disaster could have been reduced greatly," said Sheridan of Katrina. "To have people dying in hospitals and rest homes is unforgivable."

The question of accountability, which has become a primary obsession of the news media, as well as numerous levels of government in the wake of Katrina, also has become a central theme for the course.

"The issue of 'Who's in charge here? Would they please stand up?' is central," Sheridan said. "The students hear it everyday on the news, 'Who's in charge?" Should troops have been there? My course is not only about natural hazards, but it also asks the critical question, 'To whom do we communicate that hazard and how will they respond?'"

Those issues are universal for every geologic hazard, he said.

Based on his work with civil-protection authorities near active volcanoes in Ecuador, Costa Rica and Mexico, Sheridan said that the response from authorities about a specific hazard can range from practically ignoring advice on potential hazards to implementing evacuation plans even before hazard maps are published.

And because state or province boundaries in Latin America, for example, often run through the center of a hazardous area, such as that surrounding a volcano, residents living on one side of a volcano may be told to evacuate while those on the other side may be told it's safe to stay put.

Sheridan noted that the course has been a real wake-up call for students as they realize how information can change daily or even hourly.

"They assumed that science is science and that the facts were out there," he said. "Now, they are beginning to realize that everything, from death counts to descriptions of what's happening and then the explanation later of what actually happened, can change over time.

"I told my students at the beginning of the course that it's not about learning facts, it's thinking about events and understanding what's happening," said Sheridan.

Students are working in small groups to assess the preparations coastal areas had made before the storm, to assess the responses of both inhabitants and authorities during the storm and to evaluate the rate and quality of the area's recovery.

The class's evaluation of the preparation for and recovery from Hurricane Katrina will take the entire semester, concluding with teams of students presenting oral and written reports on their findings.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.