Virtually every aspect of response has a been addressed by regulatory agencies, and it is clear that these authorities will not allow uninitiated persons to enter potentially or known contaminated sites. However, there is one major aspect of response that authorities appear to have overlooked, which is the behavior of animal owners, especially farmers, i.e., compliance. The evacuation of dairy cows is not such a great problem as people may envisage. One study at the University of Tennessee indicated that 5,000 cows can be safely evacuated within 20 hours. The same study, however, indicated that dairy farmers who were flooded will not leave their animals.
Similar information is available on beef ranchers.
Farmers have consistently demonstrated low confidence in official who recommend that farmers should evacuate their farm. Even after farmers were flooded they indicated that they would prefer to rely on their own judgment than on officials if the decision to evacuate were to arise in further. Another likely problem that would occur in response to a forced evacuation without animals is that farmers would attempt to rescue or at least provide food and water for their animals. If emergency management planning has been a community effort involving all stake holders in the industry, evacuation routes have been planned and agreed upon and are regularly used in drills, and family disaster preparedness and business resumption plans have been developed, evacuations are not likely to be as great of a concern. However, at the present time one can expect the top down authoritative approach to result in low compliance, a low level of public confidence in authorities, and long term detrimental impacts on the public s perception of the wholesomeness of meat, milk and eggs as part of our regular diet.