Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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    Community preparedness for volcanic hazards at Mount Rainier, USA
    (BioMed Central Ltd, 2021-12-09) Vinnell L; Hudson-Doyle EE; Johnston DM; Becker JS; Kaiser L; Lindell MK; Bostrom A; Gregg C; Dixon M; Terbush B
    Lahars pose a significant risk to communities, particularly those living near snow-capped volcanoes. Flows of mud and debris, typically but not necessarily triggered by volcanic activity, can have huge impacts, such as those seen at Nevado Del Ruiz, Colombia, in 1985 which led to the loss of over 23,000 lives and destroyed an entire town. We surveyed communities around Mount Rainier, Washington, United States, where over 150,000 people are at risk from lahar impacts. We explored how factors including demographics, social effects such as perceptions of community preparedness, evacuation drills, and cognitive factors such as risk perception and self-efficacy relate to preparedness when living within or nearby a volcanic hazard zone. Key findings include: women have stronger intentions to prepare but see themselves as less prepared than men; those who neither live nor work in a lahar hazard zone were more likely to have an emergency kit and to see themselves as more prepared; those who will need help to evacuate see the risk as lower but feel less prepared; those who think their community and officials are more prepared feel more prepared themselves; and benefits of evacuation drills and testing evacuation routes including stronger intentions to evacuate using an encouraged method and higher self-efficacy. We make a number of recommendations based on these findings including the critical practice of regular evacuation drills and the importance of ongoing messaging that focuses on appropriate ways to evacuate as well as the careful recommendation for residents to identify alternative unofficial evacuation routes.
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    Tsunami awareness and preparedness in Aotearoa New Zealand: The evolution of community understanding
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2021-11-01) Dhellemmes A; Leonard GS; Johnston DM; Vinnell LJ; Becker JS; Fraser SA; Paton D
    After catastrophic events such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami there is a clear need for vulnerable countries like Aotearoa New Zealand to get prepared for tsunami. In the last ten years, the New Zealand government initiated major efforts to raise awareness of tsunami risk among coastal residents. This study explores tsunami awareness, preparedness, and evacuation intentions among residents of the East Coast of the North Island in a 2015 survey. The ten chosen locations also participated in a tsunami survey in 2003, with results demonstrating that tsunami awareness rose in the twelve years between the surveys. The 2015 survey also included questions on preparedness and intended action. Even though coastal residents know they live in a tsunami prone area, preparedness is relatively low and high expectations of a formal warning remain, even for a local source tsunami scenario. Furthermore, survey respondents had unrealistic ideas of evacuation procedures. When asked about their evacuation intentions, respondents intended to undertake a number of different actions before evacuating their homes, which could cause significant delays in the evacuation process. Most respondents were also reluctant to evacuate on foot and prefer using their vehicles instead, which could create dangerous traffic congestion. These surveyed intentions are consistent with a study of actual evacuation behaviours in the subsequent 2016 Kaikōura earthquake and tsunami, providing validation for the survey indicators. This paper identifies the procedures least understood by the public and offers some solutions to improve tsunami preparedness.