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The communication of messages of the impending impact of some natural disaster agent can play a key role in averting natural catastrophe. This article examines the social processes involved in disaster warnings which function to elicit evacuation in such threat situations. These processes and the role of the mass media in forming situational definitions requisite for evacuation are examined in reference to data gathered in Rapid City, South Dakota where on June 9, 1972 a flash flood produced a major disaster.
Mileti et al. (1975) studied this question.