This edition of Response to Disaster provides an updated and more thorough version of the wellreceived 1994 first edition. The author adds new research and expands on areas only briefly developed in the first edition which disseminated the original research findings from several disaster research studies completed by the author. He provides the reader with a basic understanding of how people and organizations usually respond to a disaster in contrast to how they are usually perceived to respond as well as a description of how and why the mass media helps provide both accurate and inaccurate information involving disasters. In addition the author discusses organizational response to disasters and assesses future needs in research to improve the reaction to them so that mitigation planning and disaster response activity are more effective. Here he greatly expands the areas of theory of approaches to disaster.