Earthquake Fears, Predictions, and Preparations in Mid-America
- List Price: $26.50
- Binding: Paperback
- Publisher: Southern Illinois Univ Pr
- Publish date: 06/01/1998
John E. Farley explores public reaction to Browning's pseudoscientific prediction, presenting important data gathered both before and after the threat proved empty. Farley and fellow members of his survey team consider the long-term effects of the Browning prediction on earthquake awareness and preparedness in a region that remains at risk for a damaging quake. The New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ), in fact, generated the strongest earthquakes ever observed in the lower forty-eight states in 1811 and 1812. And the region is overdue for another damaging quake.
A number of researchers have examined public response to earthquake predictions, but no other prediction -- scientific or otherwise -- attracted the level of attention Browning's did. Further, Farley is the first researcher to study the response to an earthquake prediction while the prediction remained in effect and to continue the inquiry after the date covered by the prediction had passed. His surveys answer such questions as whether the people stayed prepared or whether there was a "cry-wolf" effect. Farley is also the first researcher to look at earthquake awareness and preparedness in the NMSZ over an extended period of time.
Farley reports the results of four surveys conducted in the NMSZ: one in October 1990 (two months before Browning's predicted date for the cataclysmic quake), a second in February 1991 (two months after the quake failed to materialize), a third in July1992, and a fourth in May 1993. Thus Farley notes the level of awareness and preparation at the height of the Browning-induced scare and shows to what extent earthquake awareness and preparedness were sustained in this region after the most widely publicized prediction in recent history proved baseless.
All four surveys offer important insights into what people believe about earthquake risk in the NMSZ, what they know about earthquakes, what specific actions they have -- and have not -- taken in preparation for earthquakes, and what they think a severe quake would do to their neighborhoods.
