Quake/Tsunami

[tw]

Originally Posted by Beest

I haven't delved into the background of the original speaker, but in my training in safety assessment of equipment and processes risk and danger (hazard) are two seperate concepts.
Risk is the lilekyhood that an event will occur and the danger is what the result will be if it does occur. ...
Quality in engineering does not mean something is good, just that is the same as specified.

If perspective or definitions are not provided, then a relationship between risk and danger is read/heard different with each person.

Quality in engineering is not necessarily 'sufficient'. Quality is often defined by what is needed or can be achieved. For example, inductors are measured by a parameter called Q. This Quality factor sometimes must be as high as possible. In other designs, Q has no relevance. The word quality has different meanings based upon perspective.

In production, quality means no quality control inspectors. Quality is defined by employee attitudes. Again, different definitions based in perspective or context.

We worked in facilities with great hazards. Risk and danger often meant same. Both risk and danger were major if something was not confirmed or did not have a safety / backup system.

An example was a welder on the USS Philadelphia who was told to climb under the reactor and cut a pipe. He did not like what he saw so he refused. He was told to go back and cut it anyway. He went back under, again did not like it, and again refused. Had he cut that pipe, he would have flooded the Thames River with radioactivity. To him, no difference between risk and danger.

You may argue that risk is about a future event. And danger is about the present. But to that welder, the difference was irrelevant. Another example of how words have different or same meaning with context or perspective.