Some residents in zones with high risk of mudslides have (predictably) refused to leave their homes ... preferring to take the chance that the nearby cliffs will remain stable. In response, local law enforcement has tied pink ribbons on to the front mailboxes of the homeowners that decided to stay. The idea is that if the house collapses in a mudslide, rescuers will know if it was occupied or not - and hence whether to try to dig out any survivors.
other Pete
That might be legitimate but if kind of sounds like an old police trick. If the people didn't want to evacuate they wold tell you to fill out a form detailing who was at the address, their next of kin, any identifying marks, and to sign the part that says they were warned so they can't sue the local authorities. The idea was to get people thinking about leaving. The forms were not official and had no legal force.
Then again that is the sort of information that local authorities might want so even if it didn't scare people into fleeing it might have some use.
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