Modeling non-structural strategies to reduce pedestrian evacuation times for mitigating local tsunami threats in Guam

Bibliographic Data

ID22028007
AuthorsNathan Wood (0000-0002-6060-9729, United States Geological Survey, corresponding author), Jeff Peters (0000-0003-4312-0590, United States Geological Survey), Kwok Fai Cheung (0000-0002-7435-0500, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa), Yoshiki Yamazaki (0000-0002-2285-9874, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa), Denille Calvo (United States Department of Homeland Security), Charles Guard, Charles “Chip” P Guard (NOAA National Weather Service)
Year2023
Volume95
Pages103859
Publication date2023-09-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2212-4209
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103859
OpenAlexW4384207162
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited37

Reducing the potential for loss of life from local tsunamis is challenging for emergency managers given the need for self-protective behavior of at-risk individuals within brief windows of time to evacuate. There has been considerable attention paid to discussing the use of tsunami vertical-evacuation structures for areas where there may be insufficient time to evacuate. This strategy may not be feasible or needed for at-risk populations in island communities for multiple reasons. We examine the influence of three non-structural interventions (reducing departure delays, increasing travel speeds, and managing vegetation to create new paths) that may improve the evacuation potential for at-risk individuals in island communities and use the United States territory of Guam as our case study. We model pedestrian travel times out of a modeled inundation zone for a local tsunami generated by a Mw 8.3 earthquake within the Mariana subduction zone. Evacuation-modeling results indicate that reducing departure delays has a larger impact than increasing travel speeds or creating evacuation corridors through heavy brush on reducing the number of at-risk individuals with insufficient time to evacuate. Travel times to safety are less than wave-arrival times for almost all at-risk individuals in the tsunami-hazard zone if one assumes all three interventions are implemented

Emergency evacuation · Environmental health · Environmental planning · Geography · Hazard · Meteorology · Pedestrian · Poison control · Psychological intervention · Transport engineering · Coastal and Marine Dynamics · Disaster Management and Resilience · Engineering · Environmental Science · Evacuation and Crowd Dynamics · Medicine

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