Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Residents were concerned about their own personal safety due to the time it would
take them to release livestock from the enclosures. Other residents were concerned
about the safety of their animals after being released. They believe it would be safer to
leave them inside especially with respect to tephra fall out. Time was a recurring issue
as people were confused about the time allocated for them to evacuate particularly
with residents located 30 min from the EC.
Empowerment is described by Paton et al. (2008) as an individual's capacity to
have control over their personal affairs and confront hazard issues while receiving the
necessary support from emergency management offi cials. Some residents described
a loss of empowerment as they were not involved in the development of the evacu-
ation plan and they were told they had to follow the plan (or be arrested) contrary to
their own knowledge and perception. Furthermore, during the interview period resi-
dents had not received any feedback regarding the success of the exercise. Despite
these shortcomings all the emergency management offi cials interviewed in this study
deemed the evacuation exercise a success. This notion was enforced by the majority
of our participants who took part in the exercise.
The questionnaire survey interviews revealed that even though most participants
were able to demonstrate an accurate understanding of the eruptive history of Katla
and nearly all participants correctly defi ned jökulhlaup, many (32%) think their area
of residence would not be affected by a jökulhlaup. Alarmingly, 80% of participants
from Vestur-Eyjafjöll share this view even though 93% of them live within 2 km of
the river. However, these participants clarifi ed their beliefs by stating their homes,
like others in this community, are located approximately 30-40 m above the river
bed. Considering that the hazard assessment and consequent hazard map modeled a
catastrophic jökulhlaup reaching a maximum fl ood depth of at least 15 m upstream of
these houses it is understandable that many participants feel it is safer to stay in their
homes during a Katla eruption.
Notably, none of the participants from the 18-30 year age group and very few from
the 31-50 year age group could correctly describe a brief volcanic history of Katla. An
important element for community resilience is inherited memory of volcanic activity
(Dominey-Howes and Minos-Minopoulos, 2004). Those residents whose parents ex-
perienced the 1918 Katla eruption displayed inherited memory of the eruption. How-
ever, this knowledge has not been passed down to the next generation.
Reassuringly, nearly all participants are aware of the emergency procedures they
need to follow if an evacuation warning is issued even though some participants stated
they would not evacuate. Again, Vestur-Eyjafjöll participant responses stood out from
the group with 60% of them replying they would stay in their homes. In addition to
their homes being located higher than the river, the evacuation route for this com-
munity travels alongside the Markarfl jót. To further exacerbate their concerns resi-
dents feel that the evacuation route may place them in a vulnerable position to other
hazards such as rock fall and tephra. However, non-hazard related factors may also
infl uence residents' decision making process during a Katla eruption. It is possible that
socioeconomic constraints such as personal and economic connection to livestock
may infl uence residents' decision on whether or not to evacuate.
