What Happened to Ponce
Reconstructing early modern disaster management in Puerto Rico: development and planning examined through the lens of Hurricanes San Ciriaco (1899), San Felipe (1928) and Santa Clara (1956) Ingrid Olivo Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2015 © 2015 Ingrid Olivo All rights reserved ABSTRACT Reconstructing early modern disaster management in Puerto Rico: development and planning examined through the lens of Hurricanes San Ciriaco (1899), San Felipe (1928) and Santa Clara (1956) Ingrid Olivo This is the first longitudinal, retrospective, qualitative, descriptive and multi-case study of hurricanes in Puerto Rico, from 1899 to 1956, researching for planning purposes the key lessons from the disaster management changes that happened during the transition of Puerto Rico from a Spanish colony to a Commonwealth of the United States. The selected time period is crucial to grasp the foundations of modern disaster management, development and planning processes. Disasters are potent lenses through which inspect realpolitik in historical and current times, and grasp legacies that persist today, germane planning tasks. Moreover, Puerto Rico is an exemplary case; it has been an experimental laboratory for policies later promoted by the US abroad, and it embodies key common conditions to develop my research interface between urban planning and design, meteorology, hydrology, sociology, political science, culture and social history. After introducing the dissertation, I present a literature review of the emergence of the secular characterization of disasters and a recent paradigm shift for understanding what a disaster is, its causes and how to respond.
[Show full text]