时间：2012.10.31（16:00-17：30）
地点：人文楼教一5
报告人：Byron Newberry
题目：From Katrina to Isaac: Socio-Technical Challenges with the New Orleans' Hurricane Protection System
内容简介：Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst combined natural/technological disasters in United States history. Failures within New Orleans¹ engineered hurricane protection system (levees and flood walls) contributed to the severity of the event and drew considerable public attention. The system was again in the spotlight with the passage of Hurricane Isaac through the New Orleans area in 2012. In this presentation I seek to identify an array of potential pitfalls that can compromise engineering projects, particularly large socio-technical ones. I frame these issues, using illustrative examples taken from Katrina, in a way that might be of benefit in the philosophical and sociological study of socio-technical systems, engineering design, engineering ethics, and the societal context of engineered systems. Issues to be discussed include problems of unanticipated failure modes, faulty assumptions, lack or misuse of information, the importance of resiliency, the effects of time, balancing competing interests, attending to the details of interfaces, the fickleness of risk perception, and how the past constrains the present. I will also discuss some of the changes and improvements that have been made since Katrina, along with what we know of their performance during Hurricane Isaac.
