“…disasters are significant events…The disruption associated with disaster is, by customary standards, non-trivial. Disasters are neither confined to isolated subsystems (a single household) nor are they of fleeting duration….Disasters involve the disruption of important societal routines….If damage could be prevented or reduced through human protective action, then disaster-the physical consequence of the intersection of society and natural forces-would not exist. Disaster is a function of knowledge…When knowledge is adequate, no external force can produce disaster; ships ride out storms, buildings shake but do not collapse in earthquakes, flood levees hold, etc…When knowledge is inadequate, disaster results” (Stallings 1998, 128-129). “Disasters affect entire societies; they are neither trivial nor confined to localized social units. Disasters involve the disruption of everyday routines to the extent that stability is threatened without remedial action. Increasingly significant is the loss of certainty and the undermining of faith in orderliness. The state is a major institution for supplying countermeasures when routines are disrupted” (Stallings 1998, 131). “…in practice the definition [of disaster] will always have a physical component. The physical properties of events are triggers for disaster researchers…” (Stallings 1998, 132)