Mining destruction for data to help others
02/01/10 Los Angeles Times — In the aftermath of events like the Haiti quake, teams of 'disaster researchers' rush to the scene to study what happened. It's not morbid curiosity: Their work will alleviate future catastrophes. "We're not waiting for these things to happen, and we don't want them to happen," said Jonathan Bray, chairman of the Geo-engineering Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association and professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. "But when they do, we want to be able to learn the lessons that can be learned."