Unthinkable_ Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why - Amanda Ripley [31]
But given reasonable, tangible advice, people can be very receptive. In the nation of Vanuatu, east of Australia, the residents of a remote part of Pentecost Island have no access to modern amenities. But once a week, they get to watch TV. A truck with a satellite dish, a VCR, and a TV comes to town and everyone gathers round for some entertainment. After a 1998 earthquake in Papua New Guinea, the TV truck showed a UNESCO video on how to survive a tsunami. In 1999, the islanders felt the earth shake, just like in the video, and they ran for high ground. Thirty minutes later, a giant wave inundated the town. But only three people out of five hundred died.
But all over the world, even in developing nations, officials have an unfortunate preference for high-tech gadgetry over simplicity. In coastal Bangladesh, after a 1970 cyclone killed more than three hundred thousand people, the government devised a complex warning system. Volunteers were trained to hoist flags representing one of ten different warning levels. But a 2003 survey of rural villagers found that many took no notice of the semaphore system. “I know there are disaster signals ranging from Signal No. 1 to 10,” Mohammud Nurul Islam told a team from the Benfield Hazard Research Centre, based at University College of London. “But I have no idea what they mean.” He does have his own personal survival system, however. “I can predict any disaster coming when the sky turns gloomy, bees move around in clusters, the cattle become restless, and the wind blows from the south.”
Even a child can do better than a fancy warning system, if she has been trusted with some basic information. English schoolgirl Tilly Smith was vacationing with her parents and sister in Thailand in 2004 when the tide suddenly rushed out. Tourists pointed at the fish flopping on the sand. Out on the horizon, the water began to bubble strangely, and boats bobbed up and down. Smith, ten, had just learned about tsunami in her geography class, two weeks earlier. She had watched a video of a Hawaii tsunami and learned all the signs. “Mummy, we must get off the beach now. I think there is going to be a tsunami,” she said. Her parents started warning people to leave. Then the family raced up to the JW Marriott hotel where they were staying and alerted the staff, who evacuated the rest of the beach. In the end, the beach was one of the few in Phuket where no one was killed or seriously hurt.
The best warnings are like the best ads: consistent, easily understood, specific, frequently repeated, personal, accurate, and targeted. Now compare that description to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s color-coded alert system. It is indeed easy to understand, and it gets repeated frequently. But other than that, the alerts are inconsistent, unspecific, impersonal, and untargeted. “That isn’t a warning system,” says warnings expert Mileti. “That’s the first 10 percent of the system. It’s a risk classification system. It would be equivalent to saying, ‘It’s orange today for floods.’” Warnings need to tell people what to do. Since people aren’t sure what action they should take in response to an Orange Alert for terrorism, the color codes are unsatisfying—like someone clinking a glass to give a toast and then standing there in silence.
So what can regular people do to improve their own risk perception? When I asked risk experts this question, they told me their own tricks.
When it comes to financial risk, Taleb, the mathematical trader, refuses to read the newspaper or watch TV news. He doesn’t want to tempt his brain with buy-sell sound bites. Likewise, Slovic avoids short-term investments; he invests broadly and then walks away. Similarly, when it comes to disaster risk, there’s little to be gained by watching TV news