IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/nathaz/v40y2007i1p71-87.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tsunami Warnings: Understanding in Hawai‘i

Author

Listed:
  • Chris Gregg
  • Bruce Houghton
  • Douglas Paton
  • David Johnston
  • Donald Swanson
  • Brian Yanagi

Abstract

The devastating southeast Asian tsunami of December 26, 2004 has brought home the destructive consequences of coastal hazards in an absence of effective warning systems. Since the 1946 tsunami that destroyed much of Hilo, Hawai‘i, a network of pole mounted sirens has been used to provide an early public alert of future tsunamis. However, studies in the 1960s showed that understanding of the meaning of siren soundings was very low and that ambiguity in understanding had contributed to fatalities in the 1960 tsunami that again destroyed much of Hilo. The Hawaiian public has since been exposed to monthly tests of the sirens for more than 25 years and descriptions of the system have been widely published in telephone books for at least 45 years. However, currently there remains some uncertainty in the level of public understanding of the sirens and their implications for behavioral response. Here, we show from recent surveys of Hawai‘i residents that awareness of the siren tests and test frequency is high, but these factors do not equate with increased understanding of the meaning of the siren, which remains disturbingly low (13%). Furthermore, the length of time people have lived in Hawai‘i is not correlated systematically with understanding of the meaning of the sirens. An additional issue is that warning times for tsunamis generated locally in Hawai‘i will be of the order of minutes to tens of minutes and limit the immediate utility of the sirens. Natural warning signs of such tsunamis may provide the earliest warning to residents. Analysis of a survey subgroup from Hilo suggests that awareness of natural signs is only moderate, and a majority may expect notification via alerts provided by official sources. We conclude that a major change is needed in tsunami education, even in Hawai‘i, to increase public understanding of, and effective response to, both future official alerts and natural warning signs of future tsunamis. Copyright Springer 2007

Suggested Citation

  • Chris Gregg & Bruce Houghton & Douglas Paton & David Johnston & Donald Swanson & Brian Yanagi, 2007. "Tsunami Warnings: Understanding in Hawai‘i," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 40(1), pages 71-87, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:40:y:2007:i:1:p:71-87
    DOI: 10.1007/s11069-006-0005-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11069-006-0005-y
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11069-006-0005-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Darienzo & Al Aya & George Crawford & David Gibbs & Paul Whitmore & Tyree Wilde & Brian Yanagi, 2005. "Local Tsunami Warning in the Pacific Coastal United States," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 35(1), pages 111-119, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew Kirby, 2022. "The Right to Make Mistakes? The Limits to Adaptive Planning for Climate Change," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, June.
    2. Mieke Couling, 2014. "Tsunami risk perception and preparedness on the east coast of New Zealand during the 2009 Samoan Tsunami warning," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 71(1), pages 973-986, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eddie Bernard, 2005. "The U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program: A Successful State–Federal Partnership," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 35(1), pages 5-24, May.
    2. Alexandre Sahal & Julie Morin, 2012. "Effects of the October 25, 2010, Mentawai tsunami in La Réunion Island (France): observations and crisis management," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 62(3), pages 1125-1136, July.
    3. Azin Fathianpour & Suzanne Wilkinson & Mostafa Babaeian Jelodar & Barry Evans, 2023. "Reducing the vulnerability of tourists to tsunami: challenges for decision-makers," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 118(2), pages 1315-1339, September.
    4. Mieke Couling, 2014. "Tsunami risk perception and preparedness on the east coast of New Zealand during the 2009 Samoan Tsunami warning," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 71(1), pages 973-986, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:40:y:2007:i:1:p:71-87. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.