After researching disaster behavior, Fischer concluded that emergency managers along with the public were basing decisions on wrong information. Rarely did the public run off in a panic or engage in looting in a disaster area and officials rarely imposed martial law. He published his findings in Response to Disaster, Fact Versus Fiction and Its Perpetuation . The crime rate, he says, goes down, not up. Local merchants who depend on the good will of the public to stay in business not only don't price gouge, they often donate goods to help disaster victims.
Workers usually stay on the job and, in fact, often have to be told to go home.
Citizens pitched in to help with the cleanup and rebuilding of the City of Franklin following Hurricane Floyd. An informal survey of the 300 emergency professionals attending the conference showed that their perceptions tracked with those of the public. Only on the questions of dependency on media coverage to get disaster information and the difficulty of getting those in harm's way to evacuate did the responses match reality. Fischer says the mass media has helped perpetrate disaster myths through movies, television news, newspapers and magazines. While local newscasts generally report disaster news accurately and post vital information, national outlets tend to fit facts and footage to the common misperceptions.