When the Dust Settles: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. 'A marvellous book' -- Rev Richard Coles

Product Information

In her fascinating memoir, which also covers the work she's done throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, she shares her experiences of the frontline - Evening Standard a b Reisz, Matthew (27 March 2022). "When the Dust Settles by Lucy Easthope review – what to do when disaster strikes". The Observer . Retrieved 27 November 2022. An extraordinary memoir about raw humanity in the face of disaster. Easthope writes beautifully about the importance of the small things in these huge, defining moments and proves that, when the dust settles, with care and compassion we can rebuild from the ashes. This is an essential, uplifting read, brimming with humanity, humility and humour. the 2004 tsunami….the Grenfell fire. To err is human. Where technology, nature and humanity come together, disaster is inevitable. But in the aftermath of such calamity, it is Lucy Easthope who is called to recover, support and rebuilt communities. She is known globally for her work and holds research positions in the UK and New Zealand. She is a Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of Durham and Fellow in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath.

As one of the world's leading experts on disaster, she has been at the centre of the most seismic events of the last few decades - advising on everything from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami to the 7/7 bombings, the Salisbury poisonings, the Grenfell fire and the COVID-19 pandemic. Though laced with bleak humour, this vivid and humane book forces readers to look into some exceptionally dark places. Yet it also makes a powerful case for facing up to the worst head on, if we ever want to find hope and even a measure of healing after disaster.

Williams, Rowan (25 March 2022). "Lucy Easthope reflects on life after catastrophe". New Statesman . Retrieved 27 November 2022. Lucy Easthope is a UK expert and adviser on emergency planning and disaster recovery. [2] She is a Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of Durham, and co-founder of the After Disaster Network at the university. [3] [4] She is also a Visiting Professor in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, a researcher at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research at Massey University, a former Senior Fellow of the Emergency Planning College, and a member of the Cabinet Office National Risk Assessment Behavioural Science Expert Group. [1] [3] [5]

I listened to the audiobook of this and I am so glad I did. Lucy Easthope did a marvelous job narrating her book and it makes it all the more personal that it's the author reading it herself. Tower of shame: messages of condolence written around a commemorative red heart at Grenfell Tower, London. Photograph: Bridget Catterall/Alamy The chronology of Easthope’s life is marked by hundreds of catastrophic events, the types most people won’t see one of first-hand in their lifetime – from sunken ships, floods, train and plane crashes to the 7/7 bombings, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the Iraq War, the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Grenfell Tower fire and, most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. There is some debate about whether a disaster is the initial “big bang” or the years that follow. Life after disaster is perpetual, chronic, with a pain that ebbs and flows like tides. Errors made in the response can change the course of the recovery and undermine the longer-term psycho-social health of whole communities. I thought I knew what trauma was and what causes it. But in the course of my work, I have discovered a new enduring loss brought about by the loss of everything – something the people of Ukraine now face.It's a singular career and vocation, no doubt attracting rather singular and special people. (She shares how both her aunt and uncle were coroners and she did work experience with them as a young woman, when others of us are manning photocopiers or working as cleaners' assistants.) I'm a disaster expert – and it helped me get through my own ( BBC News Outlook Podcast, March 2022)

A less vulnerable and less reflective writer would have produced a chronicle of human desolation and doggedly faithful response, repeatedly frustrated by official ineptitude and the all-too-intelligible longing to draw a line under terrible memories. What makes this book distinctive is, first of all, the poignant awareness that loss is not to be “cured”, but can be integrated and honestly lived with if people are given the right level of time and attention; and secondly, the willingness to connect personal trauma with the sufferings of others – in a way that respects the sheer difference of those other people’s pain, yet assumes that mutual learning is always possible. It shows, time and again, an empathic grasp both of the chaotic emotions of those most directly affected by disaster, the pressure and confusion with which officials work in such circumstances, and the ease with which mistakes can be made out of misplaced goodwill. Easthope writes with understanding, for example, about the local council officials caught up in the Grenfell Tower tragedy, dropped into the deepest of water without much in the way of support or training. She has travelled across the world in this unusual role, seeing the very worst that people have to face and finding that even the most extreme of situations, we find the very best of humanity. In her moving memoir, she reveals what happens in the aftermath. She takes us behind the police tape to scenes of destruction and chaos, introducing us to victims and their families, but also to the government briefing rooms and bunkers, where confusion and stale biscuits can reign supreme. Twenty-eight years later, I am on my way to a very different disaster scene, no longer an onlooker, but here to size up the scale of what is to be faced and what can be done about it.This beautifully written, heartfelt book is not an easy read. Lucy Easthope is a remarkable person and the story of her career in disaster recovery, intertwined with her personal memoir, is, in turn, horrifying, saddening and ultimately inspiring. Her overwhelming purpose of caring for those caught up in disasters (all sadly familiar names to us), both the living and the dead, is a force for great good but the work that she and the teams with which she works is little known and therefore sadly underrated. This book should be widely read to correct that. This generosity is one of the things that makes the book so powerful, all the more as it never slips into a sentimental glossing over of incompetence or insensitivity. Easthope makes no secret of her anger, but takes care that it should be properly understood and directed, and doesn’t create more stigma, fear, defensiveness and failure. Both in its style and in its substance, this is a profoundly moral book, written with deceptive conversational ease; it opens up a world of terrible and extreme experience, but stubbornly continues to look at what’s there, the inner and outer landscape of what Easthope is not afraid to call the soul. With wisdom, resilience and candour, When the Dust Settles lifts us up by showing that humanity, hope and humour can – and must – be found on the darkest days. This was evident in the property left in the aftermath of the London 7/7 bombings. Easthope lists items such as Tupperware with salads inside, laptops and an unfinished PhD thesis, still being annotated up until the point when the bomb exploded. These objects are reminders that it was a normal commute until it wasn’t.