Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes

These three terms, as long as I can remember, seemed more like synonyms than separate terms.  I haven't experienced very many of the three so knowing the differences has not been important, until now.  Hazards, disasters, and catastrophes seem similar but mean totally different things.  Hazards, or natural hazards, are more related to the potential threats of a natural occurrences to a life or a property.  Floods, earthquakes, landslides, hurricanes, etc. are examples of possible hazards but the events themselves are not the hazards but are only called hazards because of our existence on the land.  A disaster is " a hazardous event that occurs over a limited time span within a defined area" (5).  Disasters are classified as a disaster under four circumstances; more than 10 people have to had died, at least 100 people would have to be involved or affected, the area that was hit would have to announce a position of emergency, and finally, assistance outside the country would have to be solicited (5).  Last but not least, is a catastrophe which is characterized as " a massive disaster that requires significant expenditure of money and a long time for recovery to take place" (5).  As it looks to me, "disaster" is more of a general term used for them all, while a "catastrophe" specifies the severity of the actual disaster.  Sadly, these can't be avoided but every place that suffers from their own types of hazards, disasters, or catastrophes have some form of recovery or even prevention methods.  We can't change mother nature but we can sure change how we cope with what she deals!

Keller, Edward A., Duane E. DeVecchio, and Robert H. Blodgett. Natural Hazards: Earth's Processes as Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes. Boston: Pearson, 2015. Print.