Wiley Pathways Introduction to Emergency Management - Softcover

Lindell, Michael K.; Prater, Carla; Perry, Ronald W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471772607 ISBN 13: 9780471772606

Publisher: Wiley, 2006

Synopsis

The recent devastation caused by tsunamis, hurricanes and wildfires highlights the need for highly trained professionals who can develop effective strategies in response to these disasters. This invaluable resource arms readers with the tools to address all phases of emergency management. It covers everything from the social and environmental processes that generate hazards to vulnerability analysis, hazard mitigation, emergency response, and disaster recovery.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Michael K. Lindell is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University; Senior Scholar, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, Texas A&M University; Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University

Dr. Lindell has over 30 years of experience in the field of emergency management, during which time he has conducted a long term program of research on the processes by which individuals and organizations respond to natural and technological hazards. Much of his research, especially that supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has examined the processes by which affected populations respond to warnings of the imminent threat of a hazard. This research has been conducted in communities affected by hazards as diverse as flooding, volcanic eruption, hazardous materials, and hurricanes. Professor Lindell also has had extensive experience in providing technical assistance to government agencies, industry groups and private corporations in developing emergency plans and procedures. He has served six times as a consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency in developing planning guidance for response to nuclear and radiological incidents, has made three presentations in National Academy of Sciences panels, and is currently a member of two National Academy of Sciences panels - Disasters Research in Social Sciences and Assessing Vulnerabilities Related to the Nation's Chemical Infrastructure. Professor Lindell has written extensively on emergency management and is the author of 70 technical reports, 70 journal articles and book chapters, and six books/monographs.

From the Back Cover

You can get there

Where do you want to go? You might already be working in the emergency management field, and may be looking to expand your skills. You might be setting out on a new career path. Or, you might want to learn more about exciting opportunities in emergency management.

Wherever you want to go, Hazard Mitigation and Preparedness will help you get there. Easy-to-read, practical, and up-to-date, this text not only helps you learn fundamental hazard mitigation concepts, it also helps you master the core competencies and skills you need to succeed in the classroom and beyond. The book’s brief, modular format and variety of built-in learning resources enable you to learn at your own pace and focus your studies.

With this book, you will be able to:

• Learn how to build resilience at the community level.
• Examine the major categories of hazards, including meteorological and hydrological hazards, geological hazards, and manmade hazards.
• Understand the practice and politics of mitigation policy at the federal, state, and local government levels.
• Explore how the private sector can contribute to strong local economies through wise land use and business protection planning.
• Assess risk and vulnerability and identify hazards.
• Apply appropriate mitigation tools and techniques to reduce vulnerability.
• Prepare for potential hazards with preparedness activities.
• Follow the process of hazard mitigation planning.
• Foster a culture of prevention by applying the principles of sustainable development.

Wiley Pathways helps you achieve your goals
When it comes to learning about emergency management, not everyone is on the same path. But everyone wants to succeed. The new Wiley Pathways series in Emergency Management helps you achieve your goals with its brief, inviting format, clear language, and focus on core competencies and skills.

The books in this series––Introduction to Emergency Management, Hazard Mitigation and Preparedness, Emergency Planning, Technology in Emergency Management, and Disaster Response and Recovery––offer a coordinated curriculum for learning emergency management. Learn more at www.wiley.com/go/pathways.

• Learn how to build resilience at the community level.
• Examine the major categories of hazards, including meteorological and hydrological hazards, geological hazards, and manmade hazards.
• Understand the practice and politics of mitigation policy at the federal, state, and local government levels.
• Explore how the private sector can contribute to strong local economies through wise land use and business protection planning.
• Assess risk and vulnerability and identify hazards.
• Apply appropriate mitigation tools and techniques to reduce vulnerability.
• Prepare for potential hazards with preparedness activities.
• Follow the process of hazard mitigation planning.
• Foster a culture of prevention by applying the principles of sustainable development.

Wiley Pathways helps you achieve your goals
When it comes to learning about emergency management, not everyone is on the same path. But everyone wants to succeed. The new Wiley Pathways series in Emergency Management helps you achieve your goals with its brief, inviting format, clear language, and focus on core competencies and skills.

The books in this series––Introduction to Emergency Management, Hazard Mitigation and Preparedness, Emergency Planning, Technology in Emergency Management, and Disaster Response and Recovery––offer a coordinated curriculum for learning emergency management. Learn more at www.wiley.com/go/pathways.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Wiley Pathways Introduction to Emergency Management

By Michael K. Lindell Carla Prater Ronald W. Perry

Jossey-Bass

Copyright © 2006 Michael K. Lindell .
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-471-77260-6

Chapter One

RISK PERCEPTION AND COMMUNICATION

Saving Lives

Starting Point

Go to www.wiley.com/college/Lindell to assess your knowledge of the basics of risk perception and communication.

Determine where you need to concentrate your effort.

What You'll Learn in This Chapter

* Responses to warnings

* Risk communication during the hazard phase

* Risk communication during crisis and emergency response

After Studying This Chapter, You'll Be Able To

* Analyze how people respond to warnings

* Involve the media and the public in risk communication

* Experiment using local and national information channels

Goals and Outcomes

* Design a risk communication plan

* Create and implement a risk communication plan

* Perform a protective action assessment

INTRODUCTION

As we have seen in many hurricanes, floods, and other disasters, people will not protect themselves if they don't believe their lives are at risk. Changing the way people perceive danger is an important way to save lives. To change the way people think, you must have specific plans for communicating the risks they face.

Risk is the possibility that people or property could be hurt. Risk is defined as the likelihood that an event will occur at a given location within a given time period and will inflict casualties and damage. This risk must be effectively communicated to the people who are likely to be affected. You must share information about hazards and hazard adjustments. Sharing is important because you must find out from different population segments how they think about hazards. Regardless of whether a hazard is natural, technological, or terrorist, the same basic principles of risk communication apply.

This chapter examines how people respond to warnings and includes an outline and discussion of the eight stages of information processing. It also shows how you influence perceptions by building credibility with those you need to influence. This chapter also discusses risk communication during the continuing hazard phase and during a crisis. This chapter shows you how to save lives by communicating. The best communication involves clarity, trust, and timing.

4.1 Household Response to Warnings

A warning is a risk communication about an imminent event and is intended to produce an appropriate disaster response. Examples of disaster responses include evacuating and sheltering in-place (Drabek, 1986; Mileti, Drabek and Haas, 1975). There are eight stages of a person's information processing during a warning. However, before these stages begin, people must receive, heed, and comprehend information about the risks. Let's take the case of an approaching tornado and examine what needs to happen before people seek shelter.

1. People must receive information. Warnings transmitted through television and radio are only effective if people receive them. Consequently, these warning mechanisms are much less effective between 11:00 pm and 6:00 am when most people are asleep. Of course, most televisions and radios are completely ineffective when power is lost.

2. People must heed (pay attention to) available information. Many people in tornado-prone areas know spring is the peak season for tornado activity. During those months, they should check weather forecasts more frequently. They should look for environmental cues, such as cloud formations. However, others may not pay attention to their environment. People who engage in tasks requiring intense concentration are less likely to notice gathering storm clouds and might not notice warnings.

3. People must comprehend the information. Environmental cues must be correctly processed; that is, people must know a funnel cloud is a sign of a tornado. Warnings and communication efforts must be understood as well. Warnings given in English will not help Spanish speakers. A tornado siren will not mean anything to someone who doesn't understand what the signal means. Only a few people will understand highly specialized technical terms such as millirem and pyroclastic flow.

4.1.1 Step 1: Risk Identification

Decisions about how to respond to a hazard begin with risk identification. As noted earlier, this process begins with the detection of environmental cues. However, the most important sources of risk identification are warning messages from authorities, the media, and peers. The first step you must take is to disseminate your message widely. Try to attract the attention of those at risk and inform them of the potential for disaster that threatens their health, safety and property.

Those at risk must answer the basic question of risk identification, "Is there a real threat that I need to pay attention to?" Those who do not believe the threat is real are likely to continue their normal activities.

4.1.2 Step 2: Risk Assessment

Risk assessment involves evaluating the personal consequences if the disaster occurs (Otway, 1973; Perry, 1979a). The primary question at this stage is "Do I need to take protective action?" A positive response to this question results in protection motivation. People's personal risk assessment-their risk perception-is critical in understanding their disaster response (Mileti and Sorensen, 1987). If people think they are in danger, then they are more likely to protect themselves.

Peoples' risk assessments include the perceived probability, magnitude, and immediacy of the disaster impact. Perceived probability of impact affects people's judgments of the likelihood that they will be affected, whereas perceptions of event magnitude increase their perceptions of the severity of personal consequences, including death, injury, and property damage. As perceived probability and magnitude increase, so do a person's likelihood of taking protective action. The perceived immediacy of disaster impact affects people in a different way. Instead of affecting a person's likelihood of acting, perceived immediacy increases a person's urgency to act.

4.1.3 Step 3: Protective Action Search

The primary question in protective action search is "How can I protect myself?" Residents' first attempts to answer this question often involve a search for what can be done by someone else to protect them against the hazard. However, when disaster impact is imminent, household owners must rely mostly on their own resources to achieve protection. In many instances, an individual's knowledge of the hazard suggests what type of protection to seek. People are likely to recall actions they have taken on previous occasions if they have had experience with that hazard. Alternatively, they might consider actions they took in similar hazards. For example, they might recognize that the impact of a volcanic mudflow is similar to that of a flood and, thus, they might take the protective responses that they took for a flood during a mudflow.

Information is also received from outside sources. For example, people might observe neighbors packing their cars in preparation for a hurricane evacuation. People also are likely to consider actions they have read or heard about. Such vicarious experiences are frequently transmitted by the news media and relayed by peers. Finally, people are also aware of appropriate protective actions when warnings include guidance about what to do. However, do not assume warning recipients will follow the recommendation even if the warning mentions only one protective action. People will always recognize that continuing their normal activities is an option; however, they might invoke other alternatives by remembering or observing the actions of others.

4.1.4 Step 4: Protective Action Assessment

At this point, the primary question is What is the best method of protection? The answer to this question is an adaptive plan. Those at risk generally have at least two options-taking protective action or continuing normal activities. Sometimes, those at risk must choose between two alternatives, but they don't really like either of them. During a hurricane, for example, evacuation protects people, but abandons property to storm damage (Perry, Lindell, and Greene, 1981; Lindell and Perry, 1990). On the other hand, emergency measures to protect property (e.g., sandbagging) require the property owner to remain in a hazardous location. When there is even a moderate amount of forewarning, households can engage in a combination of actions. For example, if a flood is forecast to arrive within a few hours, people could perform emergency flood proofing by placing sandbags around the building. They could also elevate the building's contents to higher floors. Finally, they could evacuate family members before floodwater reaches a dangerous level.

People are unlikely to consider protective action unless the action is considered to be effective. Thus, efficacy, which is measured by the degree of reduction in vulnerability to the hazard, refers to success in protecting both persons and property (Cross, 1980; Kunreuther et al., 1978). In some cases, such as sandbagging during floods, property protection is the goal. In other cases, people protect buildings because this also protects the people inside those buildings. People also consider the safety of the recommended action. For example, some people are reluctant to evacuate because they are concerned about the traffic accident risks involved.

Protective actions are also assessed in terms of perceived time requirements. Evacuation is time consuming. By contrast, time requirements for in-place protection are small. Occupants must shut off sources of outside air and the HVAC system (Lindell and Perry, 1992). A major problem in large-scale evacuations such as those for hurricanes is people's underestimation of the time needed to reach their destinations. Residents have accurate expectations about the time required to pack their bags and other tasks, but they underestimate the amount of travel time needed to clear the risk area. People take the typical routes out of the city and assume it will take the usual amount of time. People fail to account for immense traffic, which can turn a two-hour trip into a twenty-hour trip.

The perceived implementation barriers inhibiting residents from taking protective action include

* Lack of knowledge and skill. In the case of evacuation, this may include a lack of knowledge of a safe place to go and a safe route to travel.

* Lack of access to a personal vehicle. Many evacuations require traveling long distances to reach safety, so those who don't have their own vehicles must rely on other means. Some evacuees who lack their own vehicles are able to find rides with friends, relatives, neighbors, or coworkers, but others must rely on buses organized by their local governments. * Lack of personal mobility due to physical handicaps. A small but significant percentage of the population requires assistance because they (and, frequently, other members of their households) are unable to evacuate themselves (see Figure 4-1).

* Separation of family members. Some family members may be away from home when an evacuation occurs and the other family members do not want to leave until they return. Until family members establish communication contact and agree upon a place to meet, evacuation is unlikely to occur (Killian, 1952; Drabek and Boggs, 1968; Drabek and Key, 1976; Haas, Cochrane and Eddy, 1977).

* Perceived cost of actions to protect personal safety. Such costs include out-of-pocket expenses, opportunity costs (e.g., lost pay), and effort. The high cost can lead people to delay taking protective action until they are certain it is necessary.

When no one option seems better than other options or continuing normal activities, it is difficult for people to decide what to do. For example, evacuation is a superior protective action than seeking shelter during a hurricane, but it also costs more in terms of money and time. For people on the fringes of an evacuation area, the risk of staying may be offset by the cost of evacuating. This can cause people to wait for further information about the hurricane to see if the risk has changed enough to push the balance more clearly one way or the other.

The result of protective action assessment is an adaptive plan. People's adaptive plans vary widely, with some plans being only vague goals and others being extremely detailed. At minimum, a specific evacuation plan includes a destination, a route of travel, and a means of transportation. More detailed plans include

* A procedure for reuniting families if members are separated.

* Advance contact to confirm the destination is available.

* Alternative routes.

* Alternative methods of transportation.

Those who do not have a detailed plan are more likely to suffer negative consequences. A classic example is an interview with the recipient of an evacuation warning that contained no information on safe evacuation routes or safe destinations: "We couldn't decide where to go. So we grabbed our children and were just starting to move outside ... if it had just been ourselves, we might have taken out. But we didn't want to risk it with the children." (Hamilton, Taylor, and Rice, 1955, p. 120)

4.1.5 Step 5: Protective Action Implementation

Protective action implementation occurs when those at risk know they have to take action (see Figure 4-2). A primary question at this stage is Does protective action need to be taken now? The answer is crucial because people sometimes postpone taking action even when faced with danger. For example, some recipients of hurricane warnings often endanger their safety by waiting until the last minute to evacuate. Unfortunately, they fail to recognize that bad weather and a high traffic volume reduces the speed of evacuating vehicles. These conditions may lead to an incomplete evacuation before the arrival of storm conditions (Baker, 1979, 1980, 1993; Dow and Cutter, 2002; Prater, Wenger, Grady, 2000). The problem of procrastination is worse for long-term hazard adjustment without specific timetables. For example, an earthquake prediction might indicate a 75% chance of a severe earthquake within the next 20 years. This type of prediction often fails to motivate immediate protective action because people can rationalize that it is quite reasonable to worry about the problem later.

4.1.6 Step 6: Information Needs Assessment

People who are taking protective action need information. Before taking action, they must decide if they have enough information. Any confusing messages or expressed doubts from officials will cause people to seek more information. If the answer to the questions at any of the previous stages cannot be answered with a definite yes or no, people will ask, "What information do I need to answer my question?" Through this process, people identify an information need. Take, for example, the case of someone who does not know the answer to the question What is the best method of protection? They can search for additional information about alternative protective actions to make it clearer which option is best. People frequently seek additional information because the consequences of a decision error are very serious (e.g., failing to evacuate in time can result in death or injury) and they rarely have all the information they need to make a confident decision.

4.1.7 Step 7: Communication Action Assessment

The next question is Where and how can I obtain this information? Addressing this question leads to an information search plan. Uncertainty about risk identification and risk assessment can stimulate questions directed to officials and, more likely, the news media (Lindell and Perry, 1992). People often rely on the news media to confirm information they received about the hazard from other sources. However, people often consult their peers about what to do and how to do it. It is difficult for people to reach authorities because they are usually busy handling other calls. People are often forced to rely on the media and their peers even when they would prefer to contact authorities.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Wiley Pathways Introduction to Emergency Managementby Michael K. Lindell Carla Prater Ronald W. Perry Copyright © 2006 by Michael K. Lindell .. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471772607
• ISBN 13: 9780471772606
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 624