Myths and realities of household disaster response

Disaster Shock

In general, the impact of natural and technological disasters is not associated with substantial increases in mental health problems in the affected population. Indeed, following the 1978 floods in Rochester, Minnesota, Ollendick and Hoffman (1982) reported one third of their sample of victims claimed they were able to function better after their disaster experience. Consequently, emergency managers should expect disasters to produce a significant number of minor psychological consequences but very few major psychological consequences in the aftermath of disaster. Singer (1982, p. 248) succinctly summarizes empirical findings with the following generalization:

Reports of actual experiences reveal that most persons respond in an adaptive, responsible manner. Those who show manifestly inappropriate responses tend to be in a distinct minority. At the same time, most people do show some signs of emotional disturbance as an immediate response to a disaster, and these tend to appear in characteristic phases or stages.

Disasters of any kind constitute significant life events for victims. Reactions sometimes documented after natural and technological disasters include sleep disruptions, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, bedwetting, and irritability (Houts, et al., 1988). In a very few cases, serious psychological consequences such as extended grief reactions, depression, and psychoses ensue (Erikson, 1976). Such conditions are most likely to follow disasters that fit a profile of being sudden, lacking warning, creating physical destruction and death, and lacking apparent “rational” explanation. However, these conditions are most commonly found in people who have chronic psychological problems, making it difficult to directly attribute them to any particular disaster incident. Thus, certain types of disaster experiences could aggravate preexisting conditions that were not diagnosed prior to the disaster.

For the most part, people presenting disaster shock symptoms seem to be able to develop functional coping mechanisms for these disorders with minimal (if any) intervention by mental health professionals (Gist, Lubin & Redburn, 1999). What is important for emergency managers to understand is that such short-term stress reactions do not interfere with disaster victims’ abilities to act responsibly on their own or to follow instructions from emergency response officials. Isolated cases of immobilizing shock are reported among some people in some disasters, but such reactions are very rare and certainly cannot be described as typical of the population as a whole (Wert, 1979). In summary, disaster shock is a topic of significant theoretical interest to disaster researchers and of practical relevance to mental health professionals, but emergency managers should be aware that this reaction occurs so infrequently that it will not impede emergency response and disaster recovery operations.

Panic

The pervasive myth of panic flight in response to disasters is perpetuated by a set of erroneous inferences from the available information people have about disasters. First, people tend to think that panic is common because victims often label their immediate reaction to the situation as one of “panic” when interviewed in the news media. Careful scrutiny of these victims' statements (“When I saw the funnel cloud, I panicked”) indicates they are referring only to the first of Quarantelli's conditions—the acute fear reaction. Subsequent statements from the victim describing rational protective responses (“...so, I grabbed the baby out of the upstairs bedroom and ran down to the basement just before the house collapsed”) are often ignored. A second reason why panic is thought to be common is that observers misinterpret the state of mind of disaster victims who took unsuccessful actions. For example, a news story might assert that the victims of a motel fire found dead in a hall storage closet got there because they “panicked”. A more plausible explanation is that in crawling through the zero visibility heavy smoke, the victims reasonably—but erroneously—concluded that the first unlocked door they encountered in this unfamiliar hallway was the door to the stairwell. Once they realized their mistake, it might have seemed safer to remain in the closet (fire safety instructions typically recommend sheltering in rooms) or their exit may have been blocked by the sure peril of advancing flames. In short, the fact that an error of judgment has produced fatal consequences does not provide prima facie evidence of panic.

Indeed, even when disaster victims are successful in avoiding death, observers often interpret any attempt to flee the hazard as evidence of panic. Yet, in light of Quarantelli's definition of panic, it is difficult to see why anyone would assume that it is anything other than rational to want to put distance between oneself and a life-threatening event such as a fire, or to move quickly to leave the vicinity of crumbling buildings in an earthquake or terrorist bombing. In such cases, those affected are assessing a threat in the environment and coping with it (and their fear as well) by taking an immediate protective action.

Of course, some examples of panic flight cannot be explained away as observer errors. While it is indeed very rare, panic flight does occur under certain circumstances. In research dating back to the early 1950s, analysis of situations in which panic flight took place indicates several conditions must occur, probably simultaneously, in order to evoke mass panic flight (Fritz, 1957; Quarantelli, 1981b; Drabek, 1986). These are: (1) a perception of immediate and extreme danger; (2) the existence of a limited number of escape routes; (3) a perception that the escape routes are closing, necessitating immediate escape; and (4) a lack of communication about the situation. It is important to recognize that these conditions are defined in terms of an individual's perceptions or beliefs; thus, the conditions are based on what those at risk believe to be true at the time, not upon what others know after the fact. It is also important to note the distinction between the occurrence of an event and the potential for dangerous consequences resulting from that event. In this connection, Quarantelli (1954, p. 274) has observed:

Coal miners entombed by a collapsed tunnel who recognize they will have sufficient air until rescuers can dig through to them do not panic. [Panic occurs in reaction] to the immediate dangerous consequences of possible entrapment rather than to being trapped as such.

In summary, panic has sometimes been documented in response to both natural and technological disasters, but it is not a common reaction to any type of disaster. When panic flight is observed, it seems to involve a relatively small proportion of the people exposed to the threat and does not usually persist for any period of time. Emergency managers should know that panic does not always materialize even in cases where conditions support its emergence. For example, Johnson (1988) reported that evacuation was orderly and altruistic responses were common during the 1977 Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Kentucky (where 160 patrons died). Similar findings have been reported in other fires (Canter, Breaux & Sime, 1980; Keating, Loftus & Manber, 1983; Johnson, et al., 1994). Furthermore, Aguirre, Wenger, and Vigo (1998) reported the evacuation of the World Trade Center in 1993 was tense but orderly, with no reports of panic. Although some observers might think victims of the 2001 World Trade Center attack who jumped to their deaths were driven by panic, this does not seem to be the case. The fact that 99% of those below the impact floors evacuated successfully suggests those who jumped chose to die quickly on impact rather than slowly and painfully in the raging fire (National Institute for Standards and Technology, 2005).