Building Just-in-Time Lectures during the Prodrome of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

Hurricane Katrina, followed by Hurricane Rita, were some of the most destructive and costliest hurricanes in US history. In addition to causing death and destruction, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma gave rise to an epidemiology of fear. Despite the fact that the odds of dying in a hurricane remains low compared to that of motor vehicle crashes, tornadoes, and fires," the fear of hurricanes was reinforced by disturbing images on television. Often, these images replaced rational thinking. Teachers and public health educators worldwide only had limited materials to educate their students on the risk and risk factors for hurricanes and disasters, demonstrating how poorly the scientific community was prepared to deliver basic scientific facts about hurricanes. The Global Network Supercourse group decided to change this situation and deliver a basic lecture on the science of hurricanes to an audience of public health professionals and educators. Supercourse is a library consisting of >2,500 lectures on prevention, shared without charge, by >30,000 public health professionals from 151 countries. Targeting the educator, the Supercourse aims to deliver top quality, low bandwidth lectures to scientists around the globe. To address the problem of the epidemiology of fear associated with disasters, our group, in collaboration with Dr. Ali Ardalan from Teheran, Iran and 30 leading academic meteorologists across the world, developed several scientific lectures dealing with basic facts about hurricanes. Our hurricane lecture (http://www.pitt.edu/~superl/lecture/lec20371/index.htm) was unveiled only several days following Hurricane Katrina. This lecture was followed by Hurricane Rita lecture (http://www.pitt.edu/~superl/lecture/lec21031/index.htm) and as of 15 December 2005 has received >4,400 hits from around the globe.