Patricia Nazario, a "mobile journalist" from KPCC Radio in Los Angeles, reports from the back of a pick up truck

Stories of disasters, natural and manmade, are a staple of journalism in the United States and Latin America, indeed everywhere. Mexico, Central America and the Andean nations are eternally plagued with earthquakes, many with great loss life. Hurricanes annually can strike eastern and western Mexico and any of the countries of the Caribbean basin as well as the U.S. East Coast. Yearly torrential rains can bring flooding, misery and death to many Central and South American countries. Other examples of these human tragedies are of human origin. In this age of the continuing “war on terror,” the United States and its potential vulnerability to terror attacks, its ability to prevent them and its preparedness to deal with them are in the news daily. Similarly, although their countries have not been the scene of attacks on the scale of that of September 11, 2001, many Latin Americans know from bitter experience that terror is a weapon at the disposal of narcotics traffickers and other organized criminal gangs.