HTA-0577: Nostalgia Segment — It Wasn't That Long Ago

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Summary

Henry reflects on how quickly times have changed in a nostalgic commentary segment.

Full Transcript

00:02
You know, it wasn't that long ago, folks.

00:05
In fact, the anniversary is coming up for the Loma Prieta earthquake.

00:10
Now, we don't spend a lot of time thinking about the next earthquake, the one that is yet to come.

00:16
At least most of us don't.

00:17
On the other hand, our next guest spends a fair amount of time thinking about it.

00:22
In fact, you might say he wears it on his sleeve or at least on his shirt.

00:27
Let me introduce you at the very top of this tie to Matt Davis.

00:32
He's a professor of psychology at Dominican University of California.

00:37
And they call him disaster man on campus.

00:40
He travels all over the world studying disasters.

00:44
Mostly volcanoes and earthquakes, but more the psychological aspect of them.

00:49
How people perceive their risk, how can we motivate people to get better prepared, that type of thing.

00:54
So you found that obviously physical preparation, but also mental preparation can equate to survival in many cases.

01:02
Absolutely.

01:02
What we find is that people who bounce back more quickly after a disaster tend to be the ones that had prepared beforehand.

01:08
And of course, there's the obvious that if you have food and water, you know what to do when a disaster strikes.

01:13
You're much more likely to survive it and come through unharmed.

01:16
What's the mental preparation involved?

01:17
Like what should I be doing today to help me get through something like this?

01:21
To really kind of, I would say to make a list of the things that you need to accomplish to really be prepared and then do them.

01:27
And, you know, don't look at it as a Herculean task.

01:30
Why haven't I done them? Am I in denial? Why haven't I done them already?

01:33
It's not really denial. And a lot of people seem to think that's what's going on with us, that we have our head in the sand.

01:38
But what it really comes down to is a variable we call salience.

01:41
And basically we have a whole lot on our plate on the front burner.

01:44
So we're trying to get to work. We're trying to afford to buy our groceries.

01:47
There are a lot of everyday problems that affect us.

01:50
When you actually ask people, do you think there'll be an earthquake, people usually say absolutely, and they do think it's going to be serious for them.

01:56
But there's this kind of, you know, I have other things to deal with on a day-to-day basis, and I'll get to it down the road.

02:03
After a disaster, immediately after a disaster, people go, they go into shock, I guess? Is that the first thing that happens?

02:10
Shock to some extent, yeah. It's a fairly common reaction, although a lot of people kind of go into hyperdrive and start doing altruistic behavior.

02:18
You know, the heroism that we see in things like the Loma Prieta earthquake, where people were crawling under the freeways trying to rescue people from their cars.

02:26
So altruism is really, really a common reaction.

02:28
People band together.

02:29
People try to help one another out.

02:32
Some people do experience that kind of shock and disbelief, but that is usually fairly temporary.

02:37
But if you lose your home, I mean, it's just unimaginable, right?

02:41
Absolutely.

02:41
Or a loved one or you're injured, then that's, of course, going to have a much more profound effect on you psychologically.

02:47
So one piece of advice from Disaster Man is what? Make a list today, right now.

02:51
Make a list and prepare. Do things. Buy a case of water today and put it in your car so that you know that wherever your car is, you've got water for at least a few days.

03:00
Little things at a time.

03:02
Okay, thank you very much, Dr. Matthew Davis.

03:04
Thank you.

03:04
Dominican University. We appreciate it and we trust that we will never need any of this advice, but of course we all know we will.

03:11
Marty, Isabel.

03:12
Yeah.