A Chronic Technical Disaster and the Irrelevance of Religious Meaning: The Case of Centralia, Pennsylvania

Abstract

lasted a long time, was caused by human beings, and required sophisticated technical apparatus to detect and abate. In addition, the patterns of victimization associated with the chronic technical are different from those resulting from immediate impact natural disasters. These differences resulted in the acceptance of a technical, not moral or religious, definition of the problem. Implications of this for religion's response to other chronic technical situations are discussed. People have been coping with natural disasters for millenia. It is not surprising that the word disaster is associated with catastrophies that strike swiftly and disappear, leaving in their wake destruction, injury and perhaps death. Natural disasters are part of our commonsense thinking about catastrophic events. A hard rain causes a flash flood, a hurricane pounds a shoreline, a tornado strikes. The language of the immediate impact typifies these events as discrete, relatively quick and devastating interruptions of the normal course of affairs. Research on the preparedness of religion to respond to natural disasters and catastrophic events has shown that local religious organizations and personal faith have been instrumental in providing physical, emotional and spiritual aid to victims and their communities (Ross, 1980; Smith, 1978). A considerable portion of this research has focused on survivors' use of religious meaning to interpret their experiences of events. Dynes and Yutzy, for example, have suggested how natural disasters are readily