Risks associated with both evacuation and SIP include:
- If the public is not educated and prepared to evacuate or SIP, either protective action can cause problems. The public might not know where to evacuate to, causing them to move into the hazard instead of out of it. Similarly, populations who are unprepared to SIP may not take appropriate steps, causing them to be needlessly exposed to a hazard that they could have been protected from.
- If the media is not properly informed by emergency responders and/or public officials, they could give incomplete, inaccurate, or false information, resulting in an inappropriate response from the public. “An informed media that can correctly relay information to the public is critical in an emergency.”