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to take protective measures in response to a tsunami warning, then they need to understand
who they are trying to motivate and their capacity to respond. Assessing the types of people in
tsunami-prone areas helps oficials determine placement of warning signage and technology
(e.g., sirens), tailor the format and delivery of education efforts to reach different populations
(see Chapter 3 for additional discussion on education), and identify those who may need
special assistance during an evacuation (e.g., elderly populations).
Characterizing the demographic attributes of individuals in tsunami-prone areas does not
imply that all individuals of a certain demographic group will exhibit identical behavior during
or after a tsunami since multiple demographic characteristics of an individual or neighborhood
interact and likely amplify each other. Variations in local cultures and situations, as well as in
individual and community resilience, will inluence the extent of these demographic sensitivi-
ties. Individuals have multiple demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, economic status)
and the interaction of factors may heighten or reduce their sensitivity to tsunamis (Wood et al.,
2010). The importance of demographic sensitivities will also be inluenced by characteristics
of the hazard; for example, a high fraction of elderly people in a tsunami-prone area will be a
larger issue if the likely warning time before inundation is 30 minutes (e.g., near-ield tsunami)
compared to several hours (e.g., far-ield tsunami). With these caveats in mind, the following
demographic groups may have higher sensitivity to tsunami hazards:
the very young and the very old (Balaban, 2006; McGuire et al., 2007);
households of racial and ethnic minorities becuase of historical societal inequalities
(Laska and Morrow, 2006) and to potential exclusion from disaster preparedness
efforts (Morrow, 1999);
renters, who are less likely than homeowners to prepare for catastrophic events and
have more limited exposure to hazard information (Morrow, 1999; Burby et al., 2003);
individuals with pre-existing socioeconomic issues (e.g., homeless, living in poverty,
low literacy levels, inability to speak the primary language of an area) that may inhibit
their ability to prepare for future events (Wisner et al., 2004);
individuals at hospitals, psychiatric facilities, adult residential care centers, daycare
centers, schools, and correctional facilities that may have dificulty (e.g., hospital
patient) or be incapable (e.g., correctional-facility inmate) of evacuating on their own
and will require external assistance to evacuate; and
employees or tourists who may have low or no exposure to awareness efforts or
evacuation drills (Wood and Good, 2004; Johnston et al., 2007).
The committee found that by 2010, reports attempting to inventory the number and
types of people in tsunami hazard zones in coastal communities have been completed for the
tsunami-prone areas of Hawaii (Wood et al., 2007), Oregon (Wood, 2007), and the open-ocean
coast of Washington (Wood and Soulard, 2008). In each of these reports, census block data
from the 2000 U.S. Census and national business data were merged with tsunami hazard data
to identify, by community, the number and types of residents, employees, and facilities that
attract tourists and house special-needs populations in tsunami-prone areas. As a irst ap-
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