Amanda Ripley, Author and Columnist, discusses her new book.
Amanda Ripley is a journalist and author who studies how people go through transformations to see what we can learn from them. She has published three award-winning, nonfiction books about different subjects: High Conflict, The Smartest Kids in the World which inspired a documentary, and The Unthinkable, which became a PBS documentary on who survives disasters and why. Now her revised version of The Unthinkable, updated to include the pandemic and the role of social media and distrust in disaster response, was published just a few months ago. In it, she reveals how human fear circuits and crowd dynamics work, why our instincts sometime misfire in modern calamities, and how we can do much better.
Ripley will be in conversation with Karen Marsh, director of the Analysis and Capacity Division at FEMA. Karen works with state, local, tribal, and territorial partners to improve emergency management capabilities. She also created FEMA's popular PrepTalks video series.
There will be a book signing beginning at 6:30 p.m. with copies of The Unthinkable available to purchase. Please register for this program using the link to the left.