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August 2003: Reflections on a French Summer Disaster
Author(s) -
Thirion Xavier,
Debensason David,
Delarozière Jean Christophe,
San Marco Jean Louis
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5973.2005.00471.x
Subject(s) - death toll , toll , population , natural disaster , crisis management , emergency management , political science , order (exchange) , heat wave , history , geography , climate change , development economics , economy , business , environmental health , medicine , economics , law , meteorology , ecology , finance , immunology , biology
The heat wave of August 2003 caused a hecatomb in France. Its extent and consequences (INVS 2003) require analysis in order to understand why such a situation occurred and how to avoid that the same medical disaster will be caused in the future by identical climatic conditions. This natural disaster had no known precedent in France. The heatwave lasted for three weeks in August 2003 and led to 14800 deaths. However, the human toll of this catastrophe cannot be explained solely by the violence of the attack. Any analysis of this dramatic crisis, as for any public health threat, should take into account the agent involved, the population concerned, the specific relation between the agent and the target, and, based upon this, the crisis management needed. The analysis presented in this article, following the described line, shows that the crisis management was far from optimal. Learning from this situation should allow us to do better, next time such a climatic catastrophe occurs. A key factor is promoting adequate citizen response.