Practical lessons of past European disasters

Abstract

The subject of the paper is the necessity of paying attention to practical lessons of the past European disasters in order to improve adequate responses of today. The main goal is to show possible ways of improving resilience of the countries and regions by implementing the principle of “build it better”, not only to domain of construction building, but also to societal relations. The method is critical analysis of the past disasters, e.g. the European tsunami that happened about eight thousand years ago, the Little Ice Age that occurred at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century, the hurricane of 1674 in Northwestern Europe, and the Great Storm of 1703. There are presented relevant recent international documents which advocate the strengthening of preventative measures and the development of communities and nations resilience, in relation to the consequences of disasters, combined with the current gender theory demands. The most significant result of the paper is raising risk awareness that disasters do not always hit “others and other continents”, but could happen in Europe too. As the paper’s implication, there is also stressed the necessity of different societal organization, based on gender equality and inclusion of all citizens as actors in risk management efforts