It’s 3am on an early Tuesday morning, and you wake to the sound of a warning siren. You realize it’s your community’s tsunami warning system, and listen as it broadcasts instructions to evacuate the tsunami inundation zone and seek shelter on higher ground. You aren’t sure if you live in the inundation zone or not. What do you do?
We conducted parallel door-to-door and online surveys to better understand how Port Alberni residents responded to this exact scenario on an early January morning in 2018. We wanted to learn how and when residents learned about the tsunami warning, what actions they took to respond, and where evacuees sought safety. We also wanted to explore residents’ views on how the evacuation was conducted by emergency officials and how the event may have changed their perceptions of tsunami risk in the community. Join us as we discuss some of our findings from over 450 public surveys and interviews with 11 community and regional emergency officials in the Alberni Valley and highlight some best practices to improve future evacuations.
Please visit this link to register: Â https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_mzAyBYAdTG6XCK-Z2AjcUg
Dr. Ryan Reynolds (Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of British Columbia, School of Community and Regional Planning)