Business Disruption, Preparedness And Recovery: Lessons From The Northridge Earthquake
Date
1997
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
Description
The ways in which private businesses are affected by and attempt to recover from earthquakes and other
disasters have seldom been addressed empirically. Research findings on the business impacts of disasters have
generally been based on data from individual case studies or from a limited number of firms, rather than on
large-scale surveys, and studies have tended to use purposive or convenience samples, rather than
systematically selected ones. Over the past few years, however, the Disaster Research Center has been carrying
out a program of research on businesses and hazards that has included large-scale studies on such topics as
Small Business Administraton loan decision making following the Whittier Narrows earthquake (Dahlhamer,
1992); disaster preparedness (Tierney and Dahlhamer, 1995; Dahlhamer and D'Souza, forthcoming, 1997);
business impacts and recovery following the 1993 Midwest floods (Tierney, Nigg, and Dahlhamer, 1996); and
business vulnerability to disaster-induced lifeline service interruption (Tierney and Nigg, 1995). Because of
its scope and severity, the Northridge event provided an opportunity to further explore business vulnerability
to disasters and the factors that affect business disaster recovery.
Keywords
Northridge Earthquake, Business Disruption, Business Preparedness, Business Recovery