Citation

Wood N, Peters J, Cheung KF, Yamazaki Y, Calvo D, Guard C. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 2023; 95: e103859.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103859

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

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.

Language: en

Keywords

Evacuation; Hazard; Mitigation; Modeling; Risk; Tsunami