ABSTRACT
Disaster managers are under serious threat of becoming redundant. Their monopoly over disaster management is being confronted by a persistence among potential victims to role model their disaster behavior by unofficial traditional means. From the perspective of managers in these organizations, this choice on the part of the public does not make sense, even bordering on madness. What could be more rational and logical than accepting well thought out information that provides people in danger with instructions about what to do? Ignoring these instructions increases their risk of injury and death, but the fact is that a large proportion of individuals seek alternative nonorganizational forms of disaster information.Does this indicatemadness? I think not! As we already discussed in the previous chapter, one important reason individuals revert to traditional forms of disaster behavior is that information garnered from friends and family is felt to be trustworthy, and even when the experts were ignored, such a choice did not lower their levels of preparedness or increase their exposure to harm. This raises a problem for the disaster manager. Perhaps something is wrong with what is offered by official sources. Perhaps they are not even needed! As is heard very often, ‘‘You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink’’; perhaps what is being
marketed by disaster management agencies reflects what they and not the consumer consider to be good products.
