Immigration Forum / Australia and NZ / September 2007

[Posting only on misc.immigration.australia+nz]

I haven't made up my mind on this issue, actually.  Possibly you
are right, but there are other possibilities.  

Perhaps one country implements a policy, and others simply copy
it.  Humans do have somewhat of a "herd mentality" after all.

Looking at it from a motivational point of view, perhaps
governments acting alone or in concert are simply attempting to
avoid possible panic.

As an example, suppose that scientists were 90% certain that
Los Angeles would suffer a Richter Magnitude 9 quake would
hit Los Angeles within 24 hours.  Or that a largish meteor would
strike the city.  Or that there would be a major terrorist
incident.

Try to put yourself in the position of the President of the U.S.,
the Governor of California, and/or the Mayor of L.A.  

To make things even more interesting, suppose this possible
disaster was in midwinter.

If you announce this, there probably would be mass panic in
L.A., which would injure or kill a lot of people.

How long would it take to evacuate Los Angeles?  Personally,   I
doubt that it could be done in less than a week.

Even then, where do you take them?

So if you announce it, a lot of people are going to be injured or
killed in the panic.  If it doesn't happen, you are likely to be
held responsible.

Even if you were 100% certain it would happen, how would
you get people to evacuate without starting a panic?

Perhaps we can learn something from "Cyclone Tracy" which
devastated Darwin, Northern Territory, on Christmas Eve
1974.

If you Google using the search string

darwin cyclone tracy

you will get about 189,000 articles.

The cyclone hit Saturday night.  How long did it take the
news to reach Sydney and other cities?  From memory, around
10 AM Sunday morning.

All communications were apparently down, despite the fact that
Darwin has military bases, and had a major transmitter for the
overseas service of Radio Australia.

So how did the news get out?  Some radio amateur " jury rigged"
power for his station and sent an appeal for help.

As far as I am concerned, the response was nothing short of
"magnificent".  

The city was declared a "disaster zone" and placed under military
control.  The injured were evacuated by air to major hospitals in
other distant mainland cities, followed by a mass evacuation of
women and children.

People in these cities freely offered to share their homes with
evacuees.

However, to backtrack a bit, were people in Darwin warned of the
approach of the cyclone?  Yes, they were.  However, cyclones are
not rare during the cyclone season in the tropics, and most
people simply ignored the warning.

Most cyclones miss, this one didn't.  But, hey, it was Christmas
Eve after all!  A time to party, not to worry about a possible
cyclone.

From my point of view, many if not most Aussie's are
incurable optimists.  A common national saying is
"She'll be right, mate".

Perhaps needless to say, had my wife and I been in Darwin at the
time we would have heard the warning and probably would have got
out of the city and headed inland.

Perhaps I should mention that in tropical Australia, many if not
most homes are, or were built on "stilts", for many reasons.

To resist floods, termite infestation, cooling, etc.

Anyway, enough about Darwin.  Those interested can
Google the suggested link.

Perhaps we could compare this with the last major disaster in the
U.S., New Orleans?  How much warning was given? How many
Americans offered to house refugees?  And so on....

Some readers will see what I am getting at here.  From my point
of view, Australia is more likely to give warnings than the USA
seems to.

Still, I could be wrong, of course.  

The USA perhaps has learned that even a fictional
radio presentation of a novel could cause mass panic.  
For a start, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio)

Comments, anyone?

Cheers,
Kangaroo16