Where I work there's a lot of structures designed to withstand earthquakes. Was avalanche protection ever a major consideration in Western pioneer architecture? Do we have evidence of people choosing settlement locations based on avalanche likelihood?

What was the most interesting story you ran across in your research?

Thanks for joining us, professor Di Stefano! This is James Brooks. I've my copy in front of me and had a few questions:

• At the start of the eighth chapter, you mention that "Certainly these new arrivals would have benefited from following the advice of the Tlingit people, who possessed wisdom accumulated over generations." Did you run across any pre-Contact accounts of avalanches in the Mountain West or Alaska?

• You reference the Chilkoot Pass avalanche of 1898 ─ have there been other significant avalanche incidents in Alaska?

• In that last chapter, you talk about how disasters "offer a chance to rethink the human-nature relationship" ─ do you think disasters have had an impact on the way Americans view conservation practices?

• Do you think the lessons of the "Damalanche" north of Valdez a few years ago are similar to what you discuss in your books?

• And finally, are you familiar with the Juneau Access Project at all? That's an effort to build a road north out of Juneau toward Haines and Skagway, and it'd be the most avalanche-prone route in Alaska if built. If you're familiar with it, do you think your studies offer anything to the understanding of that project?

What's a historical disaster that the American public is largely unaware of?

What was some of the folklore of the time with regards to avalanches?

Were there any preventative techniques used for avalanches?

Thanks for all the great questions! I'll check back in later.

Could you go through all of the mistakes the Donner party made?

Were there any areas that you absolutely never travelled through during the winter?

These days we of course have ways of determining avalanche danger which, from what I understand, range from assessing the consistency of different layers of snow, the grade of the slope, weather conditions and probably lots of other things I'm unaware of. I was wondering when and how we gained our understanding of the nature of avalanches, and if there were any noteworthy misunderstandings, experiments, discoveries and the like that you studied. Thanks.

When did towns/cities/states begin to develop specialized search and rescue teams that weren't just a bunch of guys or police/firemen?