What prevents people from taking action/heeding warnings when faced with a potential disaster?

Well, there have been many times a bad weather pattern was predicted, yet nothing happened. In high-risk areas, I'm sure this happens more often than we know. People get tired of having to pack up, board up windows, make preparations for their children & pets, move in with friends & relatives--basically becoming a nuisance just to have nothing happen in their hometown.

Another thing may be that they have nowhere to go. Not every friend or relative will accept children. Fewer will accept pets (add 'hotel' to that one). And shelters fill up quite fast.

Another thing is they may not have the money to relocate for a while. Those living paycheck-to-paycheck may not have the financial resources to stay at a hotel or relative's for a few days or weeks while not making an income.

And homeless people have NOWHERE to go--if they did, they wouldn't be homeless in the first place.

Some people just don't feel comfortable staying anywhere besides their own home.

Maybe some have health issues that they feel cannot be met if they relocate.

Most of the answers were rather simplistic.

1.) The Boy Who Cried Wolf

The media acts like EVERY storm is going to be the apocalypse. It is one of the few things that has people glued to the TV watching local news. Also, national news gets hysterical about things that will be disasters far from where you live.

After a few storms that are over-hyped, people stop listening. Everyone responds by raising the "volume", emphasizing the disaster more. When the real disaster comes, it's hard to distinguish it from last year's media hyped "Snomageddon".

For disaster preparedness, it is as important to not give false warnings as it is to give real ones. Many people only have so many vacation days and so much money to prepare for disasters. Evacuation takes vacation days, and moving to a hotel costs money. Many don't have enough of either.

2.) Their Employer won't let them

This is a factor everyone leaves out. If your employer won't give you the day off, you HAVE to drive to work...and evacuation becomes problematic. Often when you have to make the decision whether to come in or not, it is like an hour before your work opens. (To allow for a commute in bad weather.) Often there is no one with the authority to say "stay home" available that early. In this bad economy, it is risk to not show up at work.

3.) Everyone tells people there is a crisis, but few clearly and realistically explain what they should do about it. It doesn't matter weather people think this storm will be a disaster or not, if they don't know what they should *DO* about it.

I think if you want people to heed warnings, you need to have fewer "false alarms". You also have to get rid of this notion that raising the volume of your warnings gets more people to respond. Clear instructions on what to do in a crisis are more useful then hysteria.

People who blame it all on ignorance and pig headedness are condescending and just don't get it.

It's like asking how to stop a hurricane, but we can't.

We can't stop a hurricane. We can't stop an earthquake. We can't stop tornadoes, volcanoes eruptions, blizzard storms, thunder/lighting storm, dust storm, etc... We can't do much about it and we have to let nature run its course.

What we do every day is what we are used to. Even if we consider the warning and do something about it, all we do is be prepared when the day comes whether we in denial or lacked of money in need to get out. We all have our own reason to handle the matter of our own.

Often, we would have to know how we are adapted to the weather. If we rarely get the certain type of weather like Earthquake, there's no way of being prepared or anyone sitting down to take the time to talk to us how to actually be prepared or handle the situation.

We're just human beings following our own nature as well as weather is following mother nature. There's nothing we can really do about it.

I'm In Longisland New york and I am getting hit still at the moment and got hit the worst at around 6PM (We think we got over 100MP gusts) and our fences ripped from the ground and flew into our shed and along with out neighbors and a BUNCH of trees.

I honestly found out that the hurricane was hitting us on thursday and we thought it would be like Irene so we just got D batteries and etc and gas. Then towards saturday we realized it is a 900 Mile monster!

We didn't want to go off the Island because the waves were bad enough as it is and we didn't want to get into traffic going through the city and we realized that no where we go, we will be affected.

So we had no choice to stay, but luckly we have a generator.

Also it was a good choice to stay because the tunnels are flooded and are closed till the end of the week and i supposingly have school Wednesday (Which I doubt I will have because I got hit pretty hard and there is no clear roads and there are limited power/tree cutter trucks.)

But long story short its too much of a hassle. Luckily we stayed here because if we went out we would of been screwed either way....

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Things that prevent people from taking action is denial and lack of plans.

make a big deal out of these hurricanes and storms and superstorms and blah blah. And they ALWAYS send people into a frenzy. People stock up food, batteries, water, lodge in their basement or 'safe spot' and these 'disasters' always turn out to be a small weather changes/wind. If you actually weren't experiencing these 'storms' and 'hurricanes' you would think that something like a disaster was actually happening because of all this over-exaggerating. For example, so many people from around the world posted pictures in Instagram that said things like "Prayers to New York from Russia," or "Stay Safe from Hurricane Sandy". I'm pretty sure these weathermen also alarmed international folks and worried them sick. The thing is, both the government and the weathermen are exaggeratin

times a bad weather pattern was predicted, yet nothing happened. In high-risk areas, I'm sure this happens more often than we know. People get tired of having to pack up, board up windows, make preparations for their children & pets, move in with friends & relatives--basically becoming a nuisance just to have nothing happen in their hometown.

Another thing may be that they have nowhere to go. Not every friend or relative will accept children. Fewer will accept pets (add 'hotel' to that one). And shelters fill up quite fast.

Another thing is they may not have the money to relocate for a while. Those living paycheck-to-paycheck may not have the financial resources to stay at a hotel or relative's for a few days or weeks while not making an income.

Another thing is they may not have the money to relocate for a while. Those living paycheck-to-paycheck may not have the financial resources to stay at a hotel or relative's for a few days or weeks while not making an income.

And homeless people have NOWHERE to go--if they did, they wouldn't be homeless in the first place.

Some people just don't feel comfortable staying anywhere besides their own home.

Maybe some have health issues that t

The "tsunami" in Hawaii ended up 3ft waves, smaller than they get for ordinary surf wave sometimes.

Are those people going to run for the hills for the next warning?

IF you live on the edge of a forest fire, EVACUATE. Nobody survives being burnt to death.

If it's just a storm and you're in a house? at worst you have to hide in the bathroom while rubbish breaks all your windows, or a tree falls n your roof. And you're going to get VERY wet. But you're on the spot to make repairs or rescue precious items in danger of turning into a sodden mess. Of course have good first aid gear, batteries, torches, food that doesn't need cooking etc. .

In a high-rise, you won't be able to get in or out when the power goes off, which might be off for a week or more. In many places the toilets won't flush, either, because the water is pumped with electric pumps. If the expected disaster is only flooding, it's ok to stay in a high-rise, as long as you go up to higher floors.

Slow-rising river flooding is easily survived locally, if you're on high enough ground. Evacuation is needed usually only to the local hill. Food and first aid supplies are essential. In many places with regular floods, it is only a foot or so deep in the houses, so it is quite possible to stay there.

Flash flooding can kill, can wipe away entire towns, but by its nature there are never warnings about flash floods.

Earthquakes are NOT PREDICTABLE so you're stuck there, like it or not.

Volcanic eruptions? the locals live with the mountain all their lives. They watch it more than the experts do. But apart from the rare unexpected huge explosion, most volcanoes spew lava or ash slowly enough for people to get away once it is heading their way. Nobody lives or works right on the edge of the craters.

The only important thing to evacuate from is if the ENEMY IS APPROACHING in wartime, and even that only if they have a name for being arbitrarily cruel.

I think that for most people it comes down to one of two things; 1. fear of what they might return to. Fear of coming back and their home being destroyed, or worse, not destroyed by the storm, but ransacked by thieves. Or 2, not being able to afford to evacuate. It is expensive to evacuate. If you do not have the money to go, you don't have a choice but to stay.

We had a flood here. We were lucky and didn't get flooded personally. However, much of the town did flood. Our neighborhood was on high enough ground it missed us. However, we were stuck here for 3 days on a little island. We couldn't evacuate due to not having the money to leave. By the time we got someone who could help, it was too late. If we had left, though, I would have been so worried about what we might be going back to. We've been through a tornado, and it is not something you want to be in when it happens. However, it was harder to leave, and then come back to it than go through the tornado.

It's complicated and emotionally hard to abandon your home and move to somewhere safe. It's easier to think "it'll never happen to me". I think some of it's laziness but mostly the whole "I'll be ok" or "It won't happen to me" type of mindset.

There are several reasons. Some people believe the danger is overstated. Some people don't want to be ordered around by "officials" they perceive to be authoritarian. Some people don't want to leave their pets behind. Some people understand the danger but have decided to play the odds.

"Hurricane" Sandy or soon to be stormy sandy will no doubt have a serious impact. People have become jaded with multiple patronising "crying wolf" messages in the media. Give the people the facts and let them decide if they want to kill themselves by staying in risky flood plains.

It is also ego. It gets in the way of a person's intellect and her true self. Also, distrust of looters, which, apparently, is a real threat. See documentaries about Hurricane Katrina.

I think for most people, they stay behind to seek a thrill and have an incredible story to tell their friends/family.

Cynicism and Denial. There are always going to be people who believe that the storm is not as bad as it sounds/the media is lying to them, and others who simply want to duck their heads into the group and pretend the storm is not going to hit them even when it is right in front of their eyes.

Either that or they have a morbid fascination with storms and facing death.

As Camus once said, “Stupidity has a knack of getting its way."

- I think it is that people are not trained to handle emergencies

- like we get to five years old / kindergarten school high school / then work == = = and the people who call the shots for the family are twenty to fifty years old - - twenty to fifty years of being a baby going to school and working - - - at no time did they or were they " trained " for an emergency

- - - the only time many dealt with an emergency was while watching television / / / and some education that is most people know most television stories are a bit phoney

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- so when many people are faced with an emergency such as this hurricane sandy well they are like soldiers at war - - -- where silently they hope they will be o kay - - the other guy will get it but not them - - - and to think BAD is negative thinking - - - so they discourage themselves from thinking bad and cheat themselves out of being prepared for that particular situation

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-- dealing with a real emergency requires all kinds of unique thinking that is NOT NORMALLY used

--- and the situation changes thinking - - - like for example a father thinks about his kids 10 percent of the time and his wife 10 percent of the time and the rest of the time - - - he thinks about work and himself

=== now an emergency happens like this hurricane sandy - - - that same guy is now spending all his time thinking and worrying about his kids and his wife - - - - - and he may not be aware of the shift of gears he has put his mind in - - - he is now in a different frame of mind ///// the mother like wise