This CU Professor Devotes Her Life To Preparing Schools For Natural Disasters

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Photo: 2013 Manitou Springs Flooding
Volunteer and recent local high school graduate Alex Caffery, center, helps local merchant Angie Findley, third from left, wash mud off merchandise at her Stick Em Up! store, which was heavily damaged a few days earlier in a flash flood, in Manitou Springs, Colo., Monday Aug. 12, 2013.

CU Boulder professor Lori Peek is kept up at night by the fear that schools aren't prepared for natural disasters. Peek has been researching emergency preparedness for the past two years, resulting in a guidebook to help schools nationwide arm themselves against floods, tornadoes and earthquakes.

Peek talked to Colorado Matters about her research and the guidebook,"Safer, Stronger, Smarter: A Guide to Improving School Natural Hazard Safety." The professor and CU Natural Hazards Center director spent nearly a decade after Hurricane Katrina studying long-term recovery from natural disasters. The 2013 flooding in Lyons is also a case study included in the guidebook.