Since graduating from the Cornell School of Architecture in 1964, Robert Brown Butler has been involved in every aspect of architectural design and construction for fifty years. From 1967 to 1973 he worked as a carpenter in California and Colorado. Since 1973 he has lived in New York where he has worked somewhat chronologically as a carpenter, contractor, registered architect, and author. In 1981 he wrote his first book, The Ecological House, which describes how to design and build houses that minimize damage to the environment. Between 1984 and 2002 he authored five thick books on architectural engineering for McGraw-Hill, and in 2012 he wrote Architecture Laid Bare, a 456-page book for laymen that describes the latest environmental and technical issues that face American architecture today. Mr. Butler’s environmental and engineering expertise as expressed in his previous publications are relevant in the Disaster Handbook, for most disasters are a clash between the outer forces of the environment and the inner forces of building engineering. Mr. Butler’s seventh book has a website: architecturelaidbare.com, and his typography has a website, bufontforge.com. The present book also has a website, http://thedisasterhandbook.com.