MORE THAN A BUSINESS TOOL

I originally wrote this chapter as Massachusetts recovered from two horrendous rain events in March 2010, with some counties seeing the highest rainfall in recorded history. The National Guard was brought in to sandbag, and parts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island were declared federal states of emergency.

Now, months later, I can say that in the last twenty-four months we have seen violent natural events all over the world—from earthquakes in Szechuan Provence, China, Port-o-Prince, and Central Chile; to floods in Rio de Janeiro and Sind Province, Pakistan; to unprecedented drought in Russia. As if our decade hadn’t seen enough with Hurricane Katrina and Indonesia’s tsunami. Sharing know-how about managing our infrastructures for safety and economic stability is an international imperative. Rescue workers in Massachusetts could Jam with officials in Rio de Janeiro. Earthquake civil engineers in California could Jam with Haitian aid workers. And the omnipresent Red Cross could teach us all ways of aiding, feeding, and sheltering survivors, p....