Disaster graphics (5/5)

When disaster hits will you be prepared? Your community could be devastated by flooding, an earthquake or maybe you get lost in a wilderness or catch a deadly virus. Knowing what to do in these situations is mostly the province of governments or regional authorities. Taras Young's fascinating book is a huge collection of public service printed matter from around the world.

The four chapters cover Pandemics, Natural disasters, Nuclear war and Alien invasion. The Introduction reveals that governments, in the last century, when the population was threatened by unthinkable threats developed various disciplines involving psychology, sociology, disaster management and of course public relations. The end result was printed matter with instructions presented in the simplest form possible. Page forty shows a 1953 Chinese tuberculosis prevention poster aimed at the elderly, it has four illustrations covering a balanced diet, fresh air, walking and relaxing at home. The book is bang up to date with an  NHS Covid-19 poster with ten graphics showing various hand-washing techniques.

Natural disaster looks at weather extremes like twisters, flooding, earthquakes, forest fires and survival techniques. Actually, some of the material in this chapter is aimed at more professional people. The US Department of Commerce published in 1993 'The advance spotters field guide' showing techniques for analyzing weather extremes, the illustrations look quite technical. Pages 144-145 have a booklet issued to aircrews by the Air Ministry in 1950 about jungle survival, for illustrations about building a palm bed and shelter or a log raft.

Nuclear war presented the authorities with a serious challenge. How to survive it, were there realistic practical measures that the living could follow? The chapter has printed material from the US, UK, Japan, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, France, Canada, Ireland and the Soviet Union. Plenty of illustrations show how families could survive in their homes, or in the US in domestic fallout shelters but there was always the threat of radioactive fallout. As this chapter is about war I was surprised that some of the fifty cigarette card set 'Air raid precautions', issued in 1938 weren't included.

The author goes the extra mile with the last chapter: Alien invasion, a brief overview of flying saucer sightings (mostly in the US) and a couple of pages about the SETI program, man's attempt to contact other life forms in the universe.

I thought the book was a worthwhile look at how government agencies prepared the public for possible disasters. It has hundreds of illustrations, all captioned.