Risk Perception and Behavior in Disasters: A Historical Perspective

Disasters are inherently full of uncertainty and the processes of decision making under the dynamics of uncertainty demand a broad consideration of various factors that influence human behavior. Those of us who are not directly exposed to the disaster scene often wonder why the victims and survivors of these events did not pursue more purposeful actions to protect themselves and their families. The behaviors that are prevalent in disaster environments are often associated with limits on human cognition that constrain the capacity to consider all relevant choice options in a given scenario. This concept of limitations in rational thought with respect to decision making (Simon 1957) during disasters may be associated with stress-related physiological compromise and/or the constraints that exist with respect to insufficient time, knowledge, and resources to make optimal decisions (Gigerenzer 1997). Evacuating from a

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disaster scenario may not be practical if there are limitations in available transportation or if the perception of risk to family and personal possessions compromises the willingness to leave the area. Additionally, the role of disaster-related emotional arousal has been acknowledged as a source of bounded rationality (Kaufman 1999).

Historical accounts of disasters provide valuable information regarding the vulnerabilities of populations that settle in hazard-prone areas. The tendency for human habitation in areas that are associated with a high risk of hazard exposure and subsequent disaster is often a result of the land use and transportation amenities that exist in these same places. The dissertation case study area of rural Southern Illinois has an extensive history of changing land use and transportation demands that have compromised the economic productivity of the region. Places that are prone to flooding and volcanic eruption are also associated with fertile plains and hillsides that yield bountiful food crops. Regions that are prone to hurricanes, typhoons, and tsunamis are also places of commerce, trade, and transportation where population density became centralized during historical periods of settlement. The benefits of the land and waterways far exceeded the risk of infrequent disaster and we have constructed a world of high risk places, rural and urban, seemingly unaware of the inevitable outcome.

Smith (1992) describes three forms of risk perception that people exhibit in order to cope with the potential danger associated with natural hazards: determinate perception, dissonant perception, and probabilistic perception. Determinate perception involves the assumption of pre- determined regularity or repetition of disaster events and is often utilized by individuals who assume that structural mitigation and technological advancements have removed the hazard risk. Dissonant perception encompasses the denial of risk and danger associated with hazardous events. Probabilistic perception acknowledges the random nature of natural disasters but may be

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associated with a loss of the sense of responsibility to prepare for disasters as they are

attributable to the forces of nature. Risk perception in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was affected, in part, by limited prior experience with the hazards that existed in particular

geographic locales and the nascency of valid geophysical and meteorological warning systems. Recent settlement and high rates of immigration often resulted in lack of familiarity with potential local hazards. This is a problem that persists in regions of the world where migration has exposed socially marginalized people to high risk from natural hazards. Violent conflict and the demise of rural agrarian lifestyles led to an exodus of immigrants to the coastline of Thailand prior to the 2004 tsunami. The individual lack of familiarity with the type of natural hazard risk in this area played a significant role in the ultimate death toll (Wisner 2006).

The attachment to places ranging from the Mississippi flood plain to Port-au-Prince, Haiti is often created out of necessity and the acceptance or denial of risk becomes a valid coping mechanism. The industrial mill towns of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, during the mid-20th century, were representative of areas where known hazards were considered to be an acceptable risk in return for the benefit of stable employment. In 1948, a temperature inversion trapped poisonous fumes from the local zinc smelter over Donora, Pennsylvania resulting in the death of 25 people and illness in an estimated 43 percent of the 13,600 residents (Townsend 1950). Quarantelli (1988) notes that personnel from the Army Chemical Center who were evaluating the community after the event noticed that some citizens who were not exposed to the poisonous fumes were exhibiting physical symptoms similar to those individuals who suffered direct exposure. This was considered to be an early indicator of psychosocial factors affecting behavioral health after a disaster. Although there was limited crisis intervention

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capacity at this point in the response to disasters, the Donora event did lead to the passage of the federal Air Pollution Control Act in 1955.

While some risk related decision-making processes are based on the necessities of livelihood, other choices are made out of dissonant disregard for potential danger due to the perceived advantage of the particular amenities of land and sea (Salkowe, Tobin and Bird 2006). Garesche (1902, 97), describes the prevailing attitude in Martinique prior to the eruption of Mt. Pelee in 1902:

That a disaster such as this would at some time occur in this volcanic region had frequently been predicted. The group of islands to which Martinique belongs is wholly of volcanic origin, and there has never been lacking proof of the thinness of the earth’s crust or evidence that nature’s great fires had not been wholly extinguished. Geologists who had made a careful study of the region had time and again declared that Mt. Pelee was liable to burst forth in eruption at any time. ... Men had no fear of it. They even dared to toy with it and on its sides, nearly half-way to its dangerous mouth, built a pleasure resort, and there many of the wealthy people had erected handsome homes, where they resided nearly all the year.

Willis Fletcher Johnson (1889), quotes an inhabitant of Johnstown after the flood of 1889,

We were afraid of that lake seven years ago. …People wondered, and asked why the dam was not strengthened, as it certainly had become weak; but nothing was

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done, and by and by they talked less and less about it, as nothing happened, though now and then some would shake their heads as if conscious the fearful day would come some time when their worst fears would be transcended by the horror of the actual occurrence (p. 34-35).

Lake Pontchartrain’s levees evoked similar concern from citizens, hazard experts, and government officials for years prior to their failure during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Many of the inhabitants of St Pierre, Martinique, San Francisco, and Johnstown were obviously aware of the dangers associated with their chosen location and ignored the known risk based on the infrequency of its occurrence and the preferential aspects of living in these areas.

Supernatural and deistic powers were often associated with disaster causality in the historical literature (Salkowe, Tobin and Bird 2006). The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 has been referred to as the first modern disaster due to the extensive emergency management measures that were put into place by the government in response to this event. This earthquake was also unique in European disaster history as it was the one of the earliest recorded events where “natural” rather than “supernatural”" causality was offered as an explanation for the disaster (Dynes 1997; Alexander 2002). After the 1902 Mt. Pelee eruption on Martinique, Reverend G. Scholl of Chicago stated,

The scientists of Martinique, on the day before the horrible catastrophe, according to official and press reports, met and declared that all was well and safe at St. Pierre. The next day the hand of God was upon the place and their lips are now silenced as to their explanation. We firmly believe the trembling of the

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earth, the volcanic eruptions and misfortunes which are still growing, are sure signs of the coming end and are just what the Bible sets forth with reference to the approaching end of the world and the second coming of Christ. The Galveston disaster was likewise considered by us as a punishment meted out by God and as a warning (Garesche 1902, 222).

The attribution of natural disasters to a higher authority remains present in today’s society and the recent 2010 earthquake in Haiti has been associated with a “pact with the devil” (ABC News 2010). Drinker (1918, intro), in review of the 1913 Dayton flood, makes a salient point that transcends the time frame from the secular interpretations of the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 to the present day by stating,

In the presence of such a fearful disaster there are few persons who will say, but there are some who will think, that this is in some manner a visitation decreed upon the communities which suffer. The very magnitude and superhuman force of it will suggest to many minds the thought of an ordered punishment and warning for offenses against a higher power. Such a concept, happily more rarely held now than in earlier times, is, of course, revolting to sober judgment and to the instincts of religious reverence. For it would imply that multitudes of the innocent should suffer indescribable cruelty; it would attempt the impossible feat of

justifying the smiting of Dayton, where all the inhabitants lived lives of peaceful, helpful industry, and the sparing of communities where men serve the gods of

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dishonest wealth and vicious idleness. This was no vengeance decreed for human shortcomings. It was superhuman, but not supernatural. It was but a

manifestation of the unchangeable, irresistible forces of nature, governed by physical laws which are inexorable.