Human behavior is just as important as technology in disaster response – Times Standard

I shared last week’s column with the HSU Geosciences coronation chapter and they came up with four excellent questions. The questions have one thing in common – they cannot be answered using information from science alone.

My academic training was math and science. Most of my classes focused on earthquake physics and solid earth. We hardly touch on societal issues of safety and impacts, and human behavior is never mentioned. It wasn’t until the 1992 Cape Mendocino earthquake that I realized the great work of geographers, sociologists, psychologists, economists and others outside of the “hard science” fields to explain why people do what they do when they are threatened and why resilience must be an interdisciplinary effort.

After the 1992 Cape Mendocino earthquake, I secured funding to assemble the first Shake Earth Preparedness magazine. I’ve never written anything like this before, and I found a post in 1990 with the title “The Next Great Earthquake in the Gulf May Come Soon Than You Think” to use as a model. I also learned that sociologist, Dr. Dennis Milletti, has studied the journal’s effectiveness and what motivates people to take preparedness action. I called him and he was generous enough to give me an intense half-hour introduction on psychology, motivation for readiness, and references to several papers. I’ve never seen disasters the same way again.

I think Dr. Milletti would have liked the questions our graduate students asked:

How do you get people to prepare for something that does not currently affect them? How would you describe risky situations without making people afraid? Can you use only one method for information and information before and during a disaster? How would you know if a source of information is reliable and get people to pay attention to it?

It’s really hard to get people to take action on threats that they don’t see as immediate. This is especially true of earthquakes and tsunamis. Unlike hurricanes, wildfires and winter storms, there is no season for earthquakes, and many decades often pass between devastating events. Mileti found a surprisingly simple factor that predicts who took action to prepare and who didn’t. The people who took action are not those who live near the rift zone or who have experienced a devastating earthquake. They were the people who talked about the risks at home or in the workplace. The first essential step to getting people to prepare is to talk about the threat.

California has spent resources and time to determine what motivates people to prepare. The California Earthquake Service and the Office of Emergency Services teamed up a decade ago to study this question. They run polls and hold focus groups and have found that there are three things that always rise to the top – by taking action I can survive, by taking action, I gain some control over the situation, and by taking action, I gain peace of mind knowing I did everything I could for the safety of my loved ones. In study after study, there is one thing that does not reinforce preparedness measures – fear. Fear does the exact opposite. People may be drawn to horror movies and news stories, but study after study shows that they are a complete loser when it comes to business promotion. If you associate securing bookshelves or practicing the evacuation route to something scary that you have seen or read, you definitely won’t be consuming your energy doing so.

Avoiding fear as a tactic does not mean hiding or deleting threat information. This means presenting it clearly in a way that everyone can understand and emphasize all the things you can do to reduce the threat and protect yourself and your loved ones. Talking about what you can do, even with children, will make the scary situation less scary.

There is no single way to notify people of a dangerous situation. In times of disaster, some or all of our communication networks such as radio, telephone, and the Internet may not work. Although technology has expanded communication methods such as Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) systems, there is no guarantee that any one system is flexible or can provide accurate information quickly enough for a given situation. And any notification depends on people understanding the message and what they need to do – a process that must start years before any real event.

There is also no single way to educate people or spread information. Participatory events like Shakeout and evacuation exercises have the advantage of developing muscle memory. But workshops, media reports, public service announcements, movies, and podcasts can all be an important part of your readiness toolkit. I emphasize the toolbox because there is no one perfect way to communicate with people. We learn in different ways, and for most of us, we need to hear something from multiple sources in order to believe it.

Consistency in messaging both before and during the disaster is essential. This was why we founded the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group 24 years ago – we needed to develop coherent and comprehensive messaging to deal with the earthquake and tsunami threat. It also does not mean that messages and information do not change over time. Every event is an opportunity to test what we have done and assess what worked and needs improvement. The new tsunami maps released next month are an example. I respect the intelligence of our society. If we make it clear that what we do is based on the best information currently available, we will continue to update as we learn more.

An easy way to start your preparedness efforts is to subscribe to ShakeOut 2020 at https://www.shakeout.org/. More next week with my own story on air quality and getting info about the fires.

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