Posted: December 28th, 2021

Disasters ln August 24, 1954

Disasters ln August 24, 1954, the farming community in Mason City, lowa was experiencing adverse thunderstorms during the afternoon. At around 4.45 PM, a violent thunderstorm struck the city leading to rainfall of over one inch within ten minutes (Miller, 2013:329). One family had just started taking their supper when a young woman arrived in their compound informing them about an aircraft crash. The crash of the flight 152 was recorded as the worst domestic airline crash of 1954 in the United States (Miller, 2013:329). The surviving young woman was a flight attendant who had fractured an ankle and she was the only surviving member of the entire crew.
The young woman had walked for around quarter a mile and the farmers helped in informing the hospital and state police. The first individual to arrive at the crash site was a farmer who could hear crying and an individual taking from the fuselage. Most of the rescuers to the scene were arriving with chains, ropes, and jacks to assist in separating the wreckage from the survivors. Farmers improvised barn doors and gates to create stretchers. The rescue efforts of the farmers helped to remove ten people alive from the wreckage, but two of the survivors before arriving at the hospital. By 7.00 PM, the survivors and bodies had been already moved to the nearby hospitals (Miller, 2013:329). The farm families provided adequate food, meeting location, and coffee to the firefighters, reporters, and aviation officials. The farmers were also instrumental in helping with the investigation into the crash. During the Christmas period, the farm families exchanged cards with the families of the survivors of the crash.
The disaster is a collective behavior because the farm families provided collective efforts in helping with emergency response and investigation of the crash. All the farmers relied on their available resources to collectively assist the survivors trapped in the wreckage. For example, the wives of the farmers collected pillows, bandages, hot water, and blankets improve the recovery process from the crash site. Most farmers and their spouses had completed first-aid classes at some time, and they were knowledgeable about their back injuries.
The contagion theory examines the social events and conditions that promote crowd behavior. lt argues a behavior by an individual is likely to be copied by other people (Templeton, Drury and Philippides, 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service:216). When the first farm family realized about the crash, they mobilize other farmers working together to provide help the survivors. The farmers responded positively to the disasters through improving their resources to provide first-aid and helping survivors out of the wreckage. The individual farmers were motivated by the ability of the whole community to pull their resources to assist the victims and survivors of the crash. State police and hospitals relied on the contribution of the farm families who were ready to provide assistance.
The disaster response organizations benefited from the positive crowd behavior of the farmers. Survivors become friends with the first-responder farmers at the crash site because of their dedication to provide help. The strengths of the contagion sociological theory are that it highlights how social events such as occurrence of disasters triggers collective behavior from the people in a community. However, the theory fails to explain whether the crowd behavior would be useful in providing benefits to the affected persons. ln summary, the contagion theory was applied when the farm families mobilized their resources to provide quality disaster response and assistance to the survivors of the air crash.
References Miller, L. David. 2013. lntroduction to collective behavior and collective action, 3rd Edition. Long Gove, lL: Waveland Press. Templeton, Anne, Drury, John and Philippides, Andrew. 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service. From mindless masses to small groups: conceptualizing collective behavior in crowd modeling. Review of General Psychology, Volume 19(3): 215-229. Retrieved 10 October 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1037/gpr0000032.

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