How to have Extraordinary Relationships When the dust settles; how to survive life changing challenges and disaster with specialist Lucy Easthope (S4 Special Episode)
Lucy Easthope - The UK's Number One Disaster Recovery Expert!
Easthope is one of the UK’s foremost experts on disaster recovery, emergency planning and the long-term aftermath of major incidents.
Among her roles, she has been:
- Professor-in-Practice of Risk & Hazard at Durham University.
- Visiting Professor (Mass Fatalities & Pandemics) at the Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath.
- Research Associate at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University in New Zealand.
Her work spans the real-world consequences of disasters: implementation of recovery, supporting bereaved families and communities, and critiquing the “recovery myth” (the assumption that communities return to “normal” after a disaster) in her academic writing.
Major works & impact
In March 2022 she published her memoir When the Dust Settles: Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster, which brings together her experiences with major incidents (including 9/11, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 7/7 London bombings, the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire and the COVID-19 pandemic) and reflects on what recovery really means.
Her work emphasizes how disasters reshape lives permanently, how response must account for human and social dimensions (not just infrastructure) and how voices of impacted people must be heard.
From interviews, she speaks candidly about hope, fragility and the human dimension of her work. For example, she says:
“I think one of the things is … just take incredible joy from a moment in the day … My work is one of the greatest privileges … just seeing people being great a lot. So that gives me a lot of hope."
Lucy and Lucy dive deep into a fascinating conversation here:
Key Points of the Episode:
- How she got into this line of work.
- A typical week in her life (it won't be like yours!)
- How she loves advocacy and social media.
- How there are more emergency planners than you might think!
- How some disasters are political.
- The "Reasonable Worst Case Scenario"
- How there has been an attitudinal shift towards her work.
- Her thoughts on Grenfell.
- How she feels like a "Cassandra" or seen as a "Debbie Downer"
- How her work has been seen as "foresight", not "hindsight"
- How children respond and engage differently to crisis, and the different help they need.
- What she has learned.
- Mental health maintenance and self care.
- "Fallow" time, and the use of it.
- How a "slump" is a natural part of healing and it to be expected.
- The difference between "Hope" and "Hopeium"
- First response to disasters.
- Potential disasters people worry about.
Reach Out To Lucy On:
Insta: @whenthedustsettleslucy
Has this podcast inspired you and would you like to learn more?
You can reach out to Lucy, love coach, relationship counsellor, couples counsellor extraordinaire and author of "How to have extraordinary relationships with absolutely everybody".....
On:http://www.lucycavendishlovecoach.com/