Disaster Response and Human Behavior
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drhgriffiths03Disaster Response and Human Behavior
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drhgriffiths03Chapter Ten
Individuals in Disasters
Learning is not compulsory…
neither is survival.
-Deming
Introduction
• Disaster events act as historical
touchstones for many people
– Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow and The Chicago Fire
(1871)
– Kanye West and Hurricane Katrina (2005)
– Loma Prieta Earthquake, 1989 World Series
– Blizzard of ’96, four feet of snow on Northeast
in three days.
Continued
• Disasters often result in social/legal
reform.
– Earthquake in Japan results in stricter building
codes.
– Johnstown Flood is the first in a series of
major Pennsylvania floods that results in
greater emphasis on flood insurance.
– September 11 resulted in new awareness
about preparedness, skyscraper evacuation
plans, marketing urban survival.
Disaster Response
• Improvising is the key activity in disaster
response because institutionalized
response is not immediate.
• Individuals who are on-site when disaster
occurs often develop immediate response
which is more effective at saving lives
(digging in ruins for survivors, locating
food and water supplies, coordinating
shelter).
Gulliver’s Disco
• A night club with a split-level layout.
• June 1, 1974 more than 300 hundred in
attendance.
• Fire occurs in building next door, orderly
evacuation of 200 or so.
• Remaining 100 still inside when fire breaks
through, 26 die—orderly evacuation and
effective response saved lives.
Herald of Free Enterprise (1987)
• Freight Ferry capsizes in a Belgian harbor.
• Out of an estimated 539 passengers,
approximately 189 died.
• However, under the conditions (no lights,
freezing water, injuries to survivors, loss of
perspective) it is a testament to survivors’
ability to organize that most people lived.
• Also, emergency plans were already in
place, allowed quick response.
Wenger (1978)
• Emergency
– Traditional and existing social arrangement
are sufficient to overcome the problems
posed by disaster agents.
• Crisis
– New social relationships must be forged in
order to overcome problems posed by
disaster agents.
Continued
• Emergencies/interpersonal response
– Groups norms and relationships, while
strained, are capable of coping
– Unexpected death of a family member.
• Crisis/interpersonal response
– Established relationships and norms are not
capable of forming response.
– In the Disco fire, audience members found
themselves assisting strangers to exits.
Continued
• Wenger suggests classifying disaster
events in terms of their impact on social
integration.
• While individuals affected by disaster
events will find little use in these
classifications, people who study disasters
may find it useful to categorize events in
this way.
Panic and Disaster
What is Panic?
• Adaptive Response
– an action designed to bring about
change for the better.
– a response to a situation that “makes
sense” to observers and participants.
• Panic—non-adaptive response.
Manifestations of Panic
Intense Personal Terror
• People are unable to reason, and react
based on short term individual interest.
Uncontrolled Individualistic Flight
• Movement toward only a few of several
possible exits, trampling.
Postdisaster Emotional Shock
• Incoherence, spatial/time distortion,
helplessness.
PEOPLE DO NOT USUALLY PANIC
• During disasters, people exhibit calm,
adaptive behavior.
– One 1954 study of early disaster reports
suggested that less than 2% of disaster
victims experience panic.
• “Stampedes” are rare to non-existent.
– Reports of panic flight are misinterpretations
of adaptive reaction, such as evacuating only
after verifying the well-being of friends/family.
– Social Bonds (i.e. parent-child keep this to a
minimum)
Continued
• Emotional shock following disaster events
occurs rarely.
• Even when it does occur, it is short-lived
and affects a minority of victims only.
• People, usually act quickly to address
problems of rescue and recovery, usually
to greater effect than outsiders because
they know the community.
Continued
• Practically speaking, survivors may
experience stress, depression, and
insomnia related to living through a
disaster event while others die.
• Children, when they are separated from
parents and/or not allowed to express their
emotions by talking through effects, are
especially susceptible to long term
consequences.
• Both are forms of PTSD.
Johnson, Feinberg, and Johnston
(1994), Collective Flight
1. Panic Flight Model
• Little regard for social bonds
2. Social Model
• Victims look after friends and family
3. Severe Threat Model
• People will first try to look after friends/family
these bonds disintegrate with increasing
danger
Continued
• Study examines a club fire, finds that in
one of the rooms greater concern was felt
for other group members as danger
increased, so no on number three.
• However, in another room, concern for
others decreased (though not completely)
as danger increased, providing support for
number three.
• Conclusion: social ties endure during
collective flight from danger.
Consequences to Misperception
• Because the idea of helpless survivors is
so ingrained in the popular consciousness,
it may serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy,
justifying bad behavior and excusing
incompetence.
• This myth also inhibits disaster planning
and preparedness.
Media Reporting (Fischer 1988)
Media reports a distorted picture;
• evacuations as panic,
• Death and injuries attributed to trampling
• Overestimate looting and price gouging
• Reports National Guard search and
rescue as martial law
• Early estimates of death and damage very
high.
• Follow-up suggested since 1985, domestic
events are reported more accurately than
international
Contributing elements in
Multifatality Evacuations
1. Overcrowding
• Especially likely to create decreased front to
rear communication, block view of exits,
mask auditory warning.
• Also increases evacuation time.
2. Limited Dispersal Time
• Multifatality fires can spread through a
building in about five minutes—it may take
as many as ten minutes to evacuate.
• Toxic fumes and secondary effects of
disaster worsen this.
Continued
3. Instructions for Dispersal
• In trying to avoid panic, initial warnings may
be worded such that people do not realize
their danger.
4. Use of Exits
• People tend to leave the way they came in,
failing to use, or unaware of, all available
exits.
5. Sensory Interference
• Once evacuation begins, noise is
overwhelming.
Conclusion
• Though the Mass Hysteria and Value-
Added perspectives blame panic for
causing many deaths during evacuation
following a disaster event, research
demonstrates that true panic is rare.
• SBI perspective suggests that multifatality
evacuations result not from panic, but from
avoidable circumstances.
Altruism: People Helping People
• If we believe that concern for strangers is
unusual, we must explain why it occurs
during disasters.
1. Stress—Assisting others relieves
survivor guilt (not tested).
2. Situational
1. Clear cues of distress.
2. Witnesses feel responsibility.
3. Helping behavior is modeled by initial
responders.