In September 2008, the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted that Hurricane Ike would make landfall on Galveston Island as a strong category three storm. This led the NWS to release a statement of 'certain death' if people did not adhere to the emergency evacuation messages. Millions of people fled the Texas coast. Using Hazleton and Long's (1993) taxonomy of public relations strategies, experimental methods were conducted with various evacuation messages to test emergency communication. Grunig's (1997) situational theory of publics was used to determine strategy influence. Problem recognition, constraint recognition, and level of involvement were tested. In addition, tests were conducted to measure source expertise, trust, and attitude depending on the message source. Results indicated that a national message source produced higher constraint recognition than a local message source. The national message source produced higher expertise, trust, and attitude then a local message source. The threat and punishment strategy produced the highest level of information-seeking behavior. Information-seeking behavior was the lowest when a persuasive strategy was used. Constraint recognition produced the weakest effect on information-seeking behavior. In conclusion, emergency management communicators must use the correct message strategy to have an effect on information-seeking behavior.

Student Number: 9503012G Master of Science. School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies / A brown haze which builds-up over Cape Town under calm and cold weather conditions causes public concern. The brown haze is thought to be due to the gaseous and particulate emissions from the city, industries, traffic and townships in the Cape Town region. Volatile organic carbon (VOCs) compounds are an important component of the haze layer particularly because of their reactivity. VOCs play an important role in the carbon budget and radiation balance, regional oxidant balance, and in the distribution of ozone and other reactive gases, both at the regional and global scale. In this study the variation in ambient VOC concentrations during brown and non-brown haze days over Cape Town during July and August 2003 were characterised. Ambient air samples were collected in evacuated stainless steel canistes from the South African Weather Service (SAWS) research aircraft (Aerocommander, ZS-JRB) and later analysed by gas chromotography equipped with a flame ionisation detector (GC-FID). Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) were the specific VOCs targeted for this study. Comparable meteorology data was also collected to determine the effects of wind field and atmospheric stability on BTEX concentrations.