‘An essential, uplifting read, brimming with humanity, humility and humour’ PROFESSOR DAME SUE BLACK

Lucy Easthope lives with disaster every day. When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, she's the one they call.

As one of the world's leading experts on disaster she has been at the centre of the most seismic events of the last few decades – advising on everything from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami to the 7/7 bombings, the Salisbury poisonings, the Grenfell fire and the Covid-19 pandemic.

She has travelled across the world in this unusual role, seeing the very worst that people have to face, and finding that even the most extreme of situations, we find the very best of humanity. In her moving memoir she reveals what happens in the aftermath. She takes us behind the police tape to scenes of destruction and chaos, introducing us to victims and their families, but also to the government briefing rooms and bunkers, where confusion and stale biscuits can reign supreme.

With wisdom, resilience and candour When the Dust Settles looks back at a life spent on the edges of disaster and shows us that where there is terrible tragedy there is also great hope and that humanity and humour can – and must – still be found on the darkest of days.

Author:
Professor Lucy Easthope is the UK's leading authority on recovering from disaster. She has been an advisor on nearly every major disaster of the past two decades, including the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, 9/11, the 7/7 bombings, the Salisbury Poisonings, Grenfell and most recently has been advising the Prime Minister's Office on the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lucy grew up in Liverpool and has a degree in law, a PhD in medicine and a Masters in risk, crisis and disaster management. She is a Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of Durham and Fellow in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath.