The ones that were properly handled aren't news.

You never heard about the lead poisoning that didn't happen.. but you'll hear about Flint Michigan.

Try counting all the dams that didn't break and, thus, averted catastrophic floods.

Also count the forest fires that didn't happen because of regulation.

When something is declared a national emergency it's typically because society have failed to prepare.

> You never heard about the lead poisoning that didn't happen.. but you'll hear about Flint Michigan.

Not a great example for this point. Cynically, you heard about Flint because journalists rode the hype train for views and clicks, either failing to do research on other communities or failing to promote those stories to the level of hype required to break into the mainstream. They were close to notifying the public of a widespread public infrastructure and health issue, but for whatever reason fell short and became fodder for anti-"fear-mongering" attitudes.

> . . . The Michigan city doesn't even rank among the most dangerous lead hotspots in America . . .

> In all, Reuters found nearly 3,000 areas with recently recorded lead poisoning rates at least double those in Flint during the peak of that city's contamination crisis. And more than 1,100 of these communities had a rate of elevated blood tests at least four times higher.

> . . .

> Like Flint, many of these localities are plagued by legacy lead: crumbling paint, plumbing, or industrial waste left behind. Unlike Flint, many have received little attention or funding to combat poisoning.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thousands-of-u-s-...

Since you're mostly counting hurricanes, here's a list of all category 4+ hurricanes that hit the US, although most were not that strength when they actually made landfall:

* Hurricane Isabel (5, 2003)

* Hurricane Charley (4, 2004)

* Hurricane Ivan (5, 2004)

* Hurricane Dennis (4, 2005)

* Hurricane Katrina (5, 2005)

* Hurricane Rita (5, 2005)

* Hurricane Wilma (5, 2005)

* Hurricane Ike (4, 2008)

* Hurricane Matthew (5, 2014)

* Hurricane Harvey (4, 2017)

* Hurricane Irma (5, 2017)

* Hurricane Maria (5, 2017)

* Hurricane Florence (4, 2018)

* Hurricane Michael (5, 2018)

* Hurricane Dorian (5, 2019)

That's 15 hurricanes. Of these, Katrina and Maria were the only ones where the response was considered botched. That's only 13%.

And how many of them required anything but the standard response from authorities? I can't think of any aside from Katrina and Maria. But it's when an atypical response is warranted that authorities ability to respond is tested. Based on that metric, the track record is poor.

There's also the concern of incentives. The authorities are incentivized to treat every emergency as requiring nothing over and above the standard response, because statistically this is correct. And so you would not expect the authorities to be able to recognize, or be honest about when an unfolding emergency requires an atypical response.

> And how many of them required anything but the standard response from authorities?

What do you mean by "standard response"? It seems to me that you have a working definition that is less an objective standard and more a subjective, circular definition of "anything that didn't fail."

Take Hurricane Harvey for example. The rain Houston received was record-breaking: ~30" in the course of a day or so, when the previous monthly record was 19". Does that require merely the "standard response"?

What I mean by the "standard response" are actions that are just some variation of: mobilize national guard, provide emergency shelter, distribute emergency rations of food, provide mobile health care, etc, and usually to some reasonably localized geographic location. Basically the sort of responses where simply modeling your response after the previous similar disaster is sufficient. The problem with Katrina and Maria was precisely that the playbook from prior disasters was inadequate either due to the type or scale of problems faced.

> Basically the sort of responses where simply modeling your response after the previous similar disaster is sufficient. The problem with Katrina and Maria was precisely that the playbook from prior disasters was inadequate either due to the type or scale of problems faced.

The Gulf of Mexico is no stranger to hurricanes, and Katrina and Maria don't even top out the strongest hurricanes on the list (that honor goes to Wilma). Hell, Katrina is only the third strongest hurricane of 2005. That's why the response was so heavily criticized: Katrina was essentially the hurricane that New Orleans' levees were designed for, a repeat of Hurricane Betsy a few days shy of 40 years earlier. Even the levee failures should have been scenarios that had been planned for in terms of disaster response.

How much response a hurricane requires depends a lot on building codes and other local regulation.

If it requires a lot of response it's often because of failure to plan/build accordingly.

How many situations don’t become national emergencies because of good management?