Responses of Pampanga households to lahar warnings: lessons from two villages in the Pasig-Potrero river watershed

Type Working Paper - Fire and Mud. Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology and University of Washington Press, Quezon City and Seattle
Title Responses of Pampanga households to lahar warnings: lessons from two villages in the Pasig-Potrero river watershed
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 1996
URL http://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo/cola/
Abstract
Barangays Parulog and San Antonio, Bacolor, were hit by lahars in 1991 and by flooding in 1992. One hundred nineteen of 143 respondent families received lahar warnings, and, of those, all but 8 evacuated at least temporarily, at least once. However, false alarms and sometimes inadequate evacuation facilities raised skepticism in 1991, and a generally improving outlook in 1992 brought many evacuated families back to their homes.

Warnings could be improved by the addition of village-level, house-by-house hazard maps, vesting of sole warning responsibility in Barangay Disaster Brigades, identification and use of proven warning strategies, and recognition that warnings will only be heeded if adequate transportation, shelter, and livelihood can be provided to those who evacuate.

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