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Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
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Why do People Choose to Live in Harm's Way?
October 24, 2007 1:47 PM
Maybe the wind is shifting, the air is cooling, and the fires are coming under control. Still plenty of pain to go around.
In the meantime, some of you have posted a difficult question in the last couple of days: why, when people know it's risky to live in the California hills, do they do it anyway? Don't they know better? Santa Ana winds are a regular feature of fall there, drought is a growing reality, and let's not even get into the issue of earthquakes.
We've done stories on this before, and the answer seems to be that the very things that sometimes make a place hazardous also make it appealing. Most people probably don't choose where in the country to live--they're there because of jobs or family or birth--but when they do, they don't see crisis looming.
In the years following Hurricane Andrew, Prof. Jay Baker of Florida State University was commissioned by the Army Corps of Engineers to survey people along the Atlantic Coast. He found people very aware of the risk--but not worried that it would affect them personally. Their daily reality is that it's nice to be near the ocean.
"Even in places that had very severe hurricane experiences, over time people tend to forget quite how bad it was," he told me a few years ago.
"More people think that they would be safe in a major hurricane in North Carolina today than believed that in 1995."
Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel economics winner at Princeton, has also looked at this issue. In essence, he argues, people in California may know, at least in the abstract, that they potentially live in harm's way--but in their day-to-day lives, they see sunny weather and pretty views.
Dan Cray has a piece in Time in which he quotes Kahneman: "People are terrified of the word nuclear, but the people who live next to a nuclear station are perfectly content with it." People, he says, "become much less frightened when something hasn't blown up in several years."
Wildfires? For most people, goes this argument, they're an abstract threat. Thoughts welcome, as always.
October 24, 2007 | Permalink | User Comments (5)
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Each location, be it the mountains or the coast, has its risks. Living in the path of a hurricane is crazy but then again have you ever visited a Caribbean island? They are beautiful! The same is true here in So Cal. Fires and earthquakes are part of the risk. Despite the size of the fire being many times larger than in years past, our brave police and fire fighters put into practice many of the lessons learned from those previous years. Communication and Control is better this time, the early warning system worked well (i.e. reverse 911 system) and the media did a pretty good job of cooperating with the decision makers instead of trying to find fault with them. Yes, there were a few idiots that ignored the evacuation notices but thankfully, even they were spared the pain. God watched over us this time and we must all remember to be generous to those that did loose their homes and/or were hurt.
Posted by: john | Oct 24, 2007 4:18:41 PM
Re: Live in harm's way. There is another way to look at this. Everyone has to live somewhere--on or in some piece of real estate. If you live next to Mt. Ranier, you could sometime see volcanic threats: lahar, lava, clouds of hot ash etc. If you live at sea level, you could experience a tsunami. If you live in the middle of a neighborhood with gunshots every night, one of them could reach you. If you live in California, at some time you could be affected by wildfire, flood, or earthquake. There is no perfect place to live. HOWEVER, when you are in a location subject to any of these disasters, the wise thing to do is to become aware of them, take necessary steps to protect yourself from them (which could include moving if you feel the threat has a high enough chance of harming you.) and if you are civic minded, work with your neighbors and community (town, county, state) to enact measures that will protect human life and property. The one blessing of the instantaneous communication many of us share is that we now know to run away from the beach if we see the water receeding... The "disasters" we are now seeing are symptomatic of at least two things: there are a lot more of us on planet Earth, and we now can know about all of them within moments of when they occur. I would advise using this information to help "Win" next time one hits.
Posted by: Gina | Oct 24, 2007 8:04:04 PM
As Gina said there are threats everywhere. If you live in a high fire risk area you build a fire-resistant house. If you live in New Orleans you take a tip from the people of Galveston who jacked up their houses and filled in beneath them after the great hurricane of 1900. Unfortunately, like the people of Galveston, too many have to have 6000 dead before they decide to make the effort to do it right.
Posted by: Bob | Oct 25, 2007 8:35:16 AM
I have a retirement goal of living in a high rise penthouse in Tampa FL. so I can see the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico without obstruction. But, when the hurricanes come up into the Gulf, you don't know where they will turn, and Tampa could be the next New Orleans! Should I invest in the property, or just visit?
Posted by: Gerald | Oct 25, 2007 3:39:07 PM
Why do people choose to live in harm's way?
Perhaps it has something to do with most of those people being unable to afford (something widespread which ratpublicans cannot comprehend) to buy another dwelling in a safer, thus more costly, location. That's why they, too embarrassed to admit poverty to the media, just say "we'll rebuild."
It's not a matter of choice but one of not preferring to live on the streets!
Posted by: sylvester_katt | Nov 16, 2007 12:01:44 PM
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