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It Is Difficult to Communicate Risk

I've heard every excuse in the book for not telling it like it is.

Average people want to be told, "It is OK, something might happen, but if it does — it won't be that bad and you likely won't be impacted significantly." This message absolves the hearer of taking any action to protect themselves or the people they love. 

See this article, Earthquake experts lay out latest outlook for the ‘Really Big One’ that’ll hit Seattle.

Some of the excuses I've heard over the years include:

  • We don't want to scare people
  • It is not good to paint the worst-case picture
  • Let's tell them everything we are doing — which then, I believe, "gives the impression that they don't have to do anything."
  • Explain how everything is getting "better"
  • Make broad statements about how one hazard compares to another completely different type — getting struck by lightning is often used
  • We don't want to make our bosses or other partners look bad because of the poor level of effort being made
  • Others you have heard?
This idea that the M9 project is going to impact national building codes sounds wonderful — but, building codes are not "adopted nationally." In the majority it is local jurisdictions that adopt and amend building codes. I use the example of the areas outside Gatlinburg Tenn., where they have "NO BUILDING CODES." Which was mentioned by the city's fire chief when talking about the wildfires that swept into town a few years back. 

The 14% chance of the "Big One" over 50 years sounds like a bet that most people are willing to take — for doing nothing. I was told a number of years ago that we have a 5% chance annually of an earthquake happening from all the different fault zones in western Washington. To the average citizen, they are not impressed by that percentage. I told the number to a statistician once and he said, "That is significant!" 

I will repeat my four stages of denial here:

  1. It won't happen
  2. If it does happen, it won't happen to me
  3. If it does happen, and it happens to me — it won't be that bad
  4. Lastly, if it does happen, and it happens to me, and it is that bad — there is nothing I can do, we will all be dead anyway.
My only rejoinder is that only about 2 percent of people die in a catastrophe. Planning on being dead is a poor assumption. Plan on being alive!

 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.