HAZARD APPRAISAL
It is not uncommon to hear people living in a hazardous place— especially if that place be a large urban area—declare that they are free of risk in their location. They may know of the threat of an
extremq event and not regard it as a hazard, as, for example,
dwehlqrå on the flanks of the Puna (Hawaii) volcano knew of erup-
dons 10 years earlier and did not count such as a danger (Murton
and Shimabukuro, 1974). This is rare in rural areas, where observa-
tions show the farmer as keenly aware of the details of hazard risk.
In urban areas, where there is greater mobility of population and
less direct contact with the land, the occupant of hazardous terrain
may be less informed. The more acute case is found in rural areas
newly settled by town folk who are sometimes genuinely unaware
of hazards created by their very occupance of the area. Chalets are
constructed in the path of avalanches in Austrian mountains by
city people who do not recognize the tracks of disaster left by
earlier avalanches (Bauer, 1972). * Exurbanites moving into north-
ern New Jersey farming areas may unwittingly place their houses
in floodplains (Beyer, 1969). *