The topic of the presentation is a preliminary and demarcated analysis from my current research project with the working title "Emergency management during large accidents and serious events - construction of meaning in the communication between authorities, the public and the press". This is a research project that was commissioned and also funded by the Danish Emergency Management Agency.

I have chosen to study two Danish cases where communication between the authorities, the press and the public has been essential in order to prevent people from being hurt. My presentation concerns the accident in Kolding 3rd of November 2004, where a warehouse containing almost 300 tons of net explosive material/1200 tons of fireworks was set on fire by an incidental drop of a box of fireworks.

The fire escalated from 2.02 pm till 5.45 pm. In this period, the crisis became more and more severe. The authorities were facing the task of evacuating 2000 people in a radius of 1 kilometer from the warehouse. At the SETRIC workshop I have briefly sketched how the authorities handled this evacuation, but the focus of the presentation is to show how a number of the residents in the area experienced the afternoon.

During a crisis people understand danger in very different ways and they react in very different ways upon the danger. In the case of Kolding it seems that people did react in relation to their own previous understandings of the risk of living close to the warehouse and not in relation to the warnings and messages given by the authorities. Furthermore, it seems that peoples previous understandings relates to the authorities risk assessment, one way or the other, people have either agreed or disagreed with the assurances given by the authorities.

At this point in the research project, my hypothesis is, that when facing a crisis where a large number of people has to be warned about a danger, the authorities has to be aware that people to some extend react on previous understandings and not just on the warnings given in the situation. This complicates the authorities task but is essential to take into consideration when preventing a huge number of people from a certain danger.

The research project is a three year study. It will be finished in the fall 2007.