ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses findings from an exploratory study of Canterburys earthquake stories, which highlighted the multifaceted contribution of interpersonal communication to a community's disaster response and suggests that this contribution could be harnessed by public agencies and NGOs to improve the effectiveness of disaster management and response. It focuses on findings about personal disaster response communication that have significant implications for initial response agencies such as civil defence, police, armed forces and health authorities. The chapter suggests a significant role for informal personal communication, placing it at the heart of disaster response and personal coping strategies. It highlights the varied roles personal communication served and how it transformed as Cantabrians coped with the February earthquakes. People collaborated on the creation of a macro-disaster narrative that wove all the narrative fragments into a grand and evolving Canterbury earthquake story to help make sense of their situation, assess their prospects, and decide on their course of action.
