Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
tools to carry out the tasks efficiently. Secondly, it is
generally believed that disasters bring out anti-social
behavior, stories of mothers dropping their babies to go
after a few seeds of grain spilled from a passing truck,
of men pushing children from lifeboats on sinking
ships. Such behavior is rare, or else it is often the
product of media distortions and bears little resem-
blance to reality. While there may be anti-social
behavior - for example the ghoulish conduct of baby-
snatchers in Naples mentioned above - survivors are
generally very sociable. Disasters kindle community
spirit and altruistic acts in people and businesses. In
Australia, there are examples of total strangers in new
cars driving up to flood and bushfire victims, tossing
them the keys and walking away. In the 1994 Sydney
fires, a major supermarket chain opened up its ware-
houses and trucked away its soft drinks to be off-loaded
free at the fire-fronts.
Another aspect about disasters, which may or may
not be mythical, is the role of heroes. People know that
if they ever have the misfortune of being caught in a
disaster and require help, there will be someone trying
to save them. In the United States, forest fires make
heroes. For example, the actions of the crew on the
St Paul and Duluth train to Hinckley, Minnesota,
during the fire of 1894 were certainly gallant. Despite
decreasing visibility due to smoke, the train was
casually driven into the town - only to be met by 150
fleeing townspeople, closely pursued by a wall of flame.
The engineer decided to evacuate people to a marsh
7 km back up the line, and throttled in reverse at full
speed. However, the fire overtook the train, consuming
one passenger car after another. As flames licked
through cracks and windows, the conductor calmly
used a fire extinguisher to put out fires on women's
dresses. In the cab, the situation was worse. Both the
engineer's and fireman's clothes caught fire, and
the cab began to burn. The glass in the cab window
burst from the heat, cutting the engineer's jugular vein;
the controls caught fire; the seats began to smolder;
and the cabin lamp melted. Several times both men
collapsed in the heat, but managed to keep the train
moving. As the train reached the marsh and erupted
into flame, both passengers and crew flung themselves
into the mud where they sheltered for four hours.
The fireman, however, after carrying the bleeding
engineer to safety, returned to the train, uncoupled the
engine and moved it to safety, while the conductor
struggled back to the nearest station to warn the next
train coming through. The crew's actions saved over
300 people.
In Australia, no one would doubt that Major-
General Stretton's work in the first weeks after
Cyclone Tracy was heroic. His organizational skills
stand out as superhuman. He was able to mobilize
evacuations and ensure that the city was cleaned up,
laying the foundations for the reconstruction that was
to follow. He made decisions that appeared innovative
and effective. He was given an impossible task to
make order out of chaos; and he succeeded without
any additional casualties. Stretton rose to the occasion,
but that is what was expected of him. He had a
military background, and was in charge of the
National Disasters Organisation in Canberra. His
training, experience, and position aided him in
performing his assignment.
Yet, there have been situations where common
people with few of these attributes have also
spontaneously risen to the occasion. When rescuers
arrived at the scene two days after the 4 February 1976
earthquake in Guatemala, they found an old man in
charge. He had organized rescue, reassured survivors,
and when the aid came in, he took charge of the
distribution of food and supplies. The other survivors
deferred to his wisdom whenever a decision or action
was required. In a way, hero stories reinforce society's
sense of security. Nowhere was this altruism more
evident than in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center on 11 September 2001. One gentleman pushed
a wheelchair-bound employee down 65 flights of
stairs to safety. Another chose to stay behind with a
handicapped person who could not flee. When the
transcripts of telephone calls made from the doomed
building were released two years later, they showed
employees carrying out their duties professionally. As a
New York Port Authority spokesperson said, 'these
people were heroes until the end'.
ADDITIONAL IMPACTS
(Dalitz, 1979; Reser, 1980)
Emo
tional problems
'Why did it have to happen to me? I've worked hard all
my life and the house is gone. There stands George's
house next door. He built it after winning the lotto. The
shrubs are stolen, and he was at the pub all through the
fire. Look, his fence isn't even scorched.'
