Filipinos' Views on the Disaster Information for the 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines

Abstract

Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) struck Visayas, the central region of the Philippines, in November 2013 and caused approximately 6,300 deaths. Despite a typhoon warning announcement, many people did not evacuate to safer places. This study focuses on the reasons behind the events that took place from the warning until the evacuation period, with the research objective of understanding how people view disaster warnings. After conducting a pretest and a pilot test, a questionnaire was distributed in both the English and Filipino languages. The survey was conducted in the affected areas in the Philippines in December 2013, which was less than 2 months after the disaster. All of the respondents experienced this typhoon because they remained in Tacloban, Cebu, Tagbilaran, and Talalora during the impact period. The results shed light on issues related to preferred disaster information, source, message, problems in receiving warnings and responses to the warnings. The findings improve the current understanding of warning systems and provide some suggestions for enhancing warnings and people's responses to warnings.

Typhoon Haiyan 2013 Evacuation Preparations and Awareness

“…Radio and local TV explained that the water might be 5 to 7m height starting from November 6 th (an estimation regarding the inundation height came to the OCD from the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) around 2 days before the event). From the results of semi-structured and non-structured interviews in this study it seems that most people took notice of these warnings (see also [15]). In this sense, recent past events such as the damages incurred during Typhoon Washi (Sendong) and Typhoon Bopha (Pablo) that hit Mindanao in 2011 and 2012 respectively might have raised people's awareness about typhoon risks in that area.…”

“…Preparations by national and local governments should be carried out before the event. They have identified some weaknesses, such as the dissemination of information, and that this information should be internalized by the public (see also [15]). Prevention and mitigation are thus a key part to reduce the impact of disasters.…”

Awareness of Coastal Disasters: Case of an Impoverished Low-Lying River Mouth Community in Southern Vietnam

“…It is well known that impoverished communities often suffer the most from natural disasters, as proven for example during the storm surge in Tacloban city during typhoon Haiyan in 2013 [13,14,24] or other recent disasters [7]. During the field surveys carried out by the authors it is clear that this community is particularly vulnerable to any type of flooding events, whether from the river, a storm surge due to a typhoon, or a tsunami.…”

“…It is worth remembering how in other recent nearby storm surge events, such as that of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013, many local residents did not evacuate, despite warning to do so. It seemed that many could not fully grasp the concept of a storm surge despite efforts from the authoritiesthrough announcements and the TV-to highlight the dangers and explain the phenomena (Esteban et al, 2015, Leelawat et al, 2014. Figure 13 Memorial pole indicating the heights of previous river flooding events, including the historical river flood in 1993.…”

“…This seems to also be the case for other countries around the world. For example, in the case of typhoon Haiyan in 2013, one of the strongest typhoons in recent times [10,11], it appeared that local residents had a low level of awareness about the nature of storm surges [24]. Many residents seemed not to understand the concept of storm surge, with a number of individual expressing how it would have been better for authorities to describe it as a "tsunami [13,14].…”