This study analyzes 488 household residents’ responses to the 2018 Indonesia M7.5 earthquake and tsunami. Comparison of this event with past earthquake and tsunami events, such as the 2009 Samoa (M8.1), 2011 Christchurch (M6.3), and 2011 Tohoku (M9.0) events, identifies commonalities and differences among people’s responses to these events. The results show that many Palu respondents failed to recognize strong earthquake ground motion as an environmental cue to a tsunami, but this was partially offset by an informal peer warning network. Most of the warnings only mentioned one of the six recommended message elements—the tsunami hazard. However, this brief message might have been adequate for many people if they could infer the certainty, severity, and immediacy of the threat, and appropriate evacuation modes, routes, and destinations. Unlike two comparison cases, some Palu respondents actually began their evacuation later than they expected the tsunami to strike. This might be due to spending too much time milling (seeking additional information, relaying warnings, reuniting families, and preparing to evacuate)—given the tsunami’s extremely rapid onset. This finding underscores the need for coastal emergency managers to promote evacuation preparedness for near-field tsunamis in which households pack Grab and Go kits in advance, warn others while evacuating, and plan in advance where to reunite household members who must evacuate separately.
There are lingering questions about the effectiveness of the watch, warning, and advisory system (WWA) used to convey weather threats in the United States. Recently there has been a shift toward alternative communication strategies such as the impact-based forecast. The study reported here compared users’ interpretation of a color-coded impact-based prototype designed for email briefings, to a legacy WWA format. Participants, including emergency managers and members of the public, saw a weather briefing and rated event likelihood, severity, damage, and population affected. Then they recommended emergency response actions. Each briefing described the severity of the weather event and the degree of impact on population and property. In one condition a color-coded impacts scale was added to the text description. In another, an advisory and/or warning was added to the text description. These were compared with the text-only control. Both emergency managers and members of the public provided higher ratings for event likelihood, severity, damage, and population affected and recommended a greater response for higher impact levels regardless of format. For both groups, the color-coded format decreased ratings for lower-impact events. Among members of the public, the color-coded format also led to increases for many ratings and greater response at higher levels relative to the other two conditions. However, the highest ratings among members of the public were in the WWA condition. Somewhat surprisingly, the only effect of the WWA format on emergency managers was to
- PAR ID:
- 10382612
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Meteorological Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Weather, Climate, and Society
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1948-8327
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 569-583
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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