Preliminary Paper #96 FIRST RESPONDERS A N D THEIR INITIAL BEHAVIOR IN HAZARDOUS CHEMICAL TRANSPORTATION ACCIDENTS

There seems t o be general agreement t ha t accidents, d i sas te r s, and catastrophes involving dangerous chemicals have been increasing i n recent years ( 1).-of w h a t many observers have known has been a growing trend. research o f a technical nature has been undertaken on the problem. very l i t t l e a t tent ion has been paid t o the behavioral, t ha t i s, the human and group aspects of the matter. we a t the Disaster Research Center ( D R C) of sociobehavioral responses t o acute chemical emergencies, t h i s b e i n g the f i r s t systematic and large scale e f f o r t of i t s kind by social s c i en t i s t s. The Bhopal, I n d i a incident was simply a very public manifestation Considerable However, To begin t o close this gap i n knowledge, i n 1977 launched a four year stud