This book is a fourteen-year longitudinal study on ‘survivors’ who have been traumatised, had their family life disrupted, and communities destabilised after three major earthquakes occurring in Italy. Taking a sociological stance, the book analyses the populations responses and recovery from the disaster through social variables and survivors testimonies, and through the participation of public agencies. The book also contains sociological definitions and models of disaster through the identification of core features of vulnerability and multiple levels of individual and social resilience. The analysis demonstrates a contrast to that of the structural and supportive roles of Italy’s civil protection and civil defence services in emergency planning and management. The book concludes by proposing a relational approach for disaster resilience planning and argues that professional planning must be supported by specific types of knowledge of how people ‘meet and cope’ with extreme challenges.