After a series of safety accidents in the mid-1990s, the Department of Energy via Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) claimed publicly that it could be the nation’s "nuclear stockpile steward" ("the Stewardship Claim"). The Laboratory did not define "stewardship" or what being a steward...

The world's 'Critical Infrastructure' (CI) has increased in size during the three decades between 1975-2006. CIs are those systems that provide critical support services to a country, geographic area for a corporate entity; when they fail, there is potentially a large cost in human life, the...

This chapter describes how authorities in Louisiana (governor Bobby Jindal and Baton Rouge mayor Kip Holden) coped with the effects of Hurricane Gustav. This was the first hurricane to hit Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. It hit land on Labor Day of 2008, missed New Orleans and hit Baton Rouge...

FEMA currently divides post-disaster operations into two phases: Response and Recovery. The nonprofit sector, primarily through the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (National VOAD) member organizations, provides services and distributes goods in ways that straddle both...

Todd Laporte’s contribution to knowledge about Hazardous Large Technical Systems and Critical Infrastructure systems has provided a way to place them in sociological context. His development of the concept of Institutional Stewardship, as an amalgamation of High Reliability Organizations,...