Public Response to a Catastrophic Southern California Earthquake: A Sociological Perspective
- Creators
- Goltz, James D.
- Mileti, Dennis S.
Abstract
This paper describes a hypothetical scenario of public response to a large regional earthquake on the southern section of the San Andreas Fault. Conclusive social and behavioral science research over decades has established that the behavior of individuals in disaster is, on the whole, controlled, rational, and adaptive, despite popular misperceptions that people who experience a disaster are dependent upon and problematic for organized response agencies. We applied this knowledge to portray the response of people impacted by the earthquake focusing on actions they will take during and immediately following the cessation of the shaking including: immediate response, search and rescue, gaining situational awareness through information seeking, making decisions about evacuation and interacting with organized responders. Our most general conclusion is that the actions of ordinary people in this earthquake scenario comprised the bulk of the initial response effort, particularly in those areas isolated for lengthy periods of time following the earthquake.
Additional Information
© 2011 Earthquake Engineering Research. Received 12 January 2010; accepted 15 October 2010.Attached Files
Published - Goltz2011p15831Earthq_Spectra.pdf
Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 25424
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20110923-150152016
- Created
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2011-10-10Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field