Public Perception of Hurricane-Related Hazards
A survey was conducted in the South Carolina coastal counties of Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester with the purpose of assessing current NWS hurricane warning packages and recommending alternatives. Most of the 200 residents that were surveyed stated th
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Public Perception of Hurricane-Related Hazards Bernhard Lee Lindner and Charles Cockcroft
Abstract A survey was conducted in the South Carolina coastal counties of Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester with the purpose of assessing current NWS hurricane warning packages and recommending alternatives. Most of the 200 residents that were surveyed stated that they had personal experience with hurricanes. Surprisingly, over half of these residents did not know the definition of a hurricane warning, over half did not realize that the main threat from hurricanes in low-lying coastal areas was from storm surge, half did not realize that more rain was the most significant consequence of a slower moving storm, and the majority were not able to translate a standard National Hurricane Center projection of storm surge depth into a realistic appreciation of the risk posed to their lives, despite their prior experience with hurricanes. These misunderstandings were most prevalent among the poor, among minority groups and among those with no college education. When asked to interpret both a graphic-filled hurricane advisory and the standard NWS text-based advisory, the understanding of the risk from hurricanes was far higher when the graphic-filled advisory was used.
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Introduction
“Just tell me: Am I going to have water in my living room? Quit talking like a bunch of geeky guides” (former National Weather Service (NWS) director David Johnson was quoted by the Charleston Post and Courier newspaper in a speech before the 58th annual Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference, March 2004). On a practical matter, it is actually very difficult to convey the complex science of hurricanes on a simple level while not introducing error or misconceptions. Yet, the effectiveness
B.L. Lindner (*) • C. Cockcroft Physics and Astronomy Department, College of Charleston, 66 George St., Charleston, SC 29424, USA e-mail: [email protected] C.W. Finkl (ed.), Coastal Hazards, Coastal Research Library 6, 185 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5234-4_7, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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B.L. Lindner and C. Cockcroft
of NWS hurricane warnings (hereafter simply abbreviated as ‘warnings’) can have important implications for both the physical and the psychological health of individuals in the path of a hurricane. Thus, warnings must be prepared in a manner in which the general public receives the greatest understanding of the risks, which will allow them to make informed evacuation decisions. A hurricane is a low probability but high consequence event, and this affects the way hurricane warnings are interpreted (Mileti and Fitzpatrick 1991). The low probability of a hurricane striking any location (Keim et al. 2007) is one reason some people do not respond to the warnings even though the consequences can be high. The low probability of a strike equates with low perceived risk, and low perceived risk leads to non-response to weather service advisories (Mileti and O’Brien 1992). In a study using data from four previous studies, Earl J. Baker (197
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