Effective Disaster Warnings

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (2000). Effective disaster warnings. Available from http //www.fema.gov... 

While parallel processes developed in the warning before each Mods and Rockers event, a crucial difference was that there were very few of the factors tending to produce denial, disbelief, defence and other such end-products described in disaster research. There was little warning before the initial Clacton event, but the inventory build-up and reaction to this and subsequent events was such that the widely disseminated warnings and threats were generally believed. Few were predisposed to erect the elaborate defence mechanisms that are used, for example, to discount the possibility of nuclear warfare. The inventory, particularly the prediction factor, was crucial in building up a reaction to deviance identical to the sensitization which occurs in an effective disaster warning ... 

ON THE BEACHES THE WARNING ANDTHE IMPACT 1 See, for example, I. L. Janis, Psychological Effects on Warning , in G. W. Baker and D. W. Chapman (Eds), Man and Society in Disaster (New York Basic Books, 1962) S. B. Withey, Reactions to Uncertain Threat , ibid. pp. 93-102, and Sequential Accommodations to Threat ,... 

Much of this displacement is associated with increasingly severe storms linked to the effects of climate change, compounded by persistent poverty and lack of state capacity in countries such as Haiti This renders citizens more vulnerable to repeated and protracted displacement, as they are likely to lack effective early warning and preparedness systems, well-constructed homes located in safe areas, and the finances and tenure security required to rebuild them if necessary. Preparedness and response capacities vary dramatically across the region and, in a sad irony, repeated exposure to disasters often undercuts the ability of states and communities to weather major disasters. 

Students and workers in laboratories should always remember three important words—danger, warning, and caution (or A, B, C)—while handling flammable liquids to avoid health effects and chemical disasters ... 

Probably the most famous of seal failures ever was the Challenger disaster which has been described in some detail by Lewis (71). This resulted from the effect of overnight low temperature on Viton elastomer. Perhaps most shocking is that this was a case where there had been several warnings of potential failure. 

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