Natural-disaster policies need shaking up.

Twentieth-century technology has lofted people into space and conquered smallpox, but it has not made them any less susceptible to floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other ravages of nature, according to a comprehensive 5-year study released last week.

In fact, U.S. citizens are growing ever more vulnerable to natural disasters, says Dennis S. Mileti, a sociologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who led the study team of 132 academics and officials. "The U.S. has been--and still is---creating increased catastrophic disasters in its future. It's time for a paradigmatic shift in our nation's approach," says Mileti.

The federally funded report estimates that 24,000 people died in natural disasters between 1975 and 1994, and four times that number sustained injuries. These events caused damage amounting to $500 billion, not counting indirect costs such as lost business and employment, environmental harm, and emotional tolls on victims.

Severe storms caused more than 80 percent of these losses, while earthquakes and volcanoes together accounted for just 10 percent. Seven of the 10 most expensive disasters, adjusted for inflation, have happened since 1989, indicating that the cost of catastrophes is growing.

The report blames people for the increasing damage. "There is a fundamental flaw in the way our nation and culture try to solve the problems of disaster. Many of the accepted methods of coping with disaster are based on the fantasy that people can use technology to control nature and make themselves totally safe," says Mileti.

For instance, hurricane forecasting in the past several decades has improved to the point that meteorologists can now provide many hours of warning before a storm makes landfall, perhaps fostering a false sense of security. Compounding that influence was a lull, from 1965 to 1989, in large storms that hit the U.S. coastline. "By providing advance warnings of severe storms, this country may well have encouraged more people to build in fragile coastal areas," says the report.

Indeed, between 1950 and 1991, the population of South Florida swelled from 3 million to over 13 million, with 80 percent of that expansion along the coast.

Instead of trusting in technology to eliminate disasters, Mileti and his colleagues propose that people take responsibility for reducing their risk of harm. Local communities and state and federal officials must consider the threat of natural disasters while making long-term development plans. Insurance companies can provide incentives for people to take steps mitigating future losses.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has already begun to adopt some of these principles, says Jane Bullock, the agency's chief of staff. In 1997, FEMA started a program called Project Impact, designed to help communities increase their resistance to disasters. In flood-prone Darlington, Wis., for example, residents moved 15 vulnerable buildings and prevented new development near a river.

The program started out working with 7 localities and has since expanded to more than 118. The new report will help spread Project Impact to other regions, says Bullock. "It will give the program an impetus in different communities that may have been somewhat reluctant to come to the table."