Quiet Emergencies

Recently I've heard the concerns that people are "moving on" from Katrina relief. Could it be that the public doesn't have a clear sense anymore of what the needs are and how best they can help? It was easier to do when numerous media organizations were focusing on one crisis.

I was at the Tucker Foundation here at Dartmouth this morning, and Todd Kilburn pointed out a useful distinction to me: loud versus quiet emergencies. The loud emergencies are when a crisis gets lots of attention. Eventually these emergencies "go quiet" as they receive less public attention. It turns out there are specialists who know a lot about these distinctions. Seems to me like it takes a different kind of system to engage the public when a crisis like Katrina/Rita go quiet.