Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
everyone has seen pictures of people returning home
after a natural disaster to pick through the ruins to find
some memento. The pictures often show people sitting
afterwards in complete despair or shock when nothing
can be found. The personal belongings give some sense
of continuity to life. They also provide a sense of
history - a connection with past events or ancestors. As
a survivor of Hurricane Andrew in 1992 said, 'You work
all your life, and for what? Insurance took good care of
me, but I lost my home. Not just my house and every-
thing in it, but my home' (Santana, 2002). Survivors
have gone to extreme lengths to try to recover some of
these possessions. Relatives are contacted to provide
copies of significant photographs, and antique shops
may be searched to obtain replicas of prized objects.
Many people immediately commit themselves to
rebuilding in exactly the same location. Often a dupli-
cate of the original house is built. This was the case for
many people rebuilding after the Ash Wednesday
bushfires. Homes were re-established in their entirety
to designs that offered little protection against repeat
bushfires. The need to rebuild exact replicas can be
taken to extremes. For example, following the San
Francisco earthquake of 1906, the city rejected a
modern design in favor of a street layout and a building
program that would, as quickly as possible, recreate
the original city. Sometimes investment in assets
conditions reconstruction. For instance, following the
Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, earthquake of 3 February
1931, the town of Hastings was rebuilt to its original,
narrow street plan, even though total destruction
permitted an opportunity to rebuild wider streets. The
decision to rebuild in this manner was made at the
adamant insistence of one councilor, who owned
the only shop with any part of its structure still
standing. The councilor wanted to save money by not
having to rebuild a new shop, which he would have to
do if the streets were widened.
Feelings about property can be quite intense. For
example, following the autumn coastal storms of
1974 around Sydney, Australia, I was walking with
colleagues along remnants of the beach in front of
a series of houses propped up by makeshift supports.
As we dodged waves surging up amongst the rocks,
one resident furiously yelled that we were on private
property and that he would 'get the police after us' for
trespassing. This incident highlights a second stage of
response following a natural disaster. After the initial
impact, and after all one's resources have been utilized
to ensure safety of the family, the anger sets in. For
some people, the response manifests itself in long-term
psychological shock that alters life forever.
Anti
-social behavior
No group of people is so disdained as the sightseer or
the looter. Looting, while rare, does occur. However, it
also tends to be exaggerated by the media. In the
United States, the prospect of looting traditionally has
been so great following disasters, that the National
Guard is often mobilized to block off affected areas
and ordered to shoot looters on sight. Residents have
to show evidence that they live in an area, and must
restrict their activities to the street in which they live.
In Australia, looting is a reality after most disasters.
People were arrested following both Cyclone Tracy
and the Ash Wednesday bushfires, but no one was ever
jailed. The Lismore flood of 1954 saw looters taking
whatever they could carry from the business district,
including a rescue boat that was used openly to
transport stolen goods.
A real problem for rescue and relief organizers after
large disasters is coping with the sightseers. While
people may just want to see what a natural disaster
such as a cyclone or bushfire can do, the victims often
perceive sightseeing as an intrusion on their privacy by
the nosy, or as an opportunity by those who survived
unscathed to gloat over their luck and the victims'
misfortune. In Australia, sightseeing can take on
mammoth proportions, not only by the public but also
by the politicians and bureaucrats. Almost every
cabinet minister in the Whitlam government made a
fact-finding journey to Darwin after Cyclone Tracy.
The same planes that evacuated survivors returned
nearly as full with government sightseers. Following
the Ash Wednesday bushfires, which occurred in the
middle of the 1983 election campaign, almost all party
leaders made the journey to affected areas - not, as
they took pains to state in front of the cameras, for
political reasons, but to see if they could offer genuine
help.
People's misfortune can also breed extraordinarily
ghoulish behavior. For example, an old lady was
robbed in busy downtown Toronto, Canada, in broad
daylight, after being blown to the ground in January
1978 by wind gusts in excess of 160 km hr
-1
. As she lay
pinned to the sidewalk, a more agile motorist, in what
at first appeared to be an act of chivalry, stopped his car
and ran to assist her. Before stunned onlookers could
