Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
people located in a high risk area and in need of helicopter evacuation, and tourists
travelling within the hazard zone. The police were instructed to arrest residents if they
refused to evacuate (this did not actually occur but residents who were refusing to
evacuate were told that they would be arrested in a real evacuation).
The main problem brought to the attention of the Red Cross at the EC was the
failure in communication-many residents did not receive the evacuation message and
during the evacuation, the EH did not receive this message from the EC. Despite this,
approximately 65% of the population located within the hazard zone of Rangávalla-
sysla registered at the ECs. Talk amongst the residents at the EC included the commu-
nication failure while many voiced their concerns about leaving their animals. Another
problem witnessed at the EC was the time it took to manually register residents.
Several instances occurred where residents had not received an evacuation warn-
ing but were asked to leave by the sweepers and one family was rescued by the emer-
gency helicopter. Four elderly men arrived at the EC 3 hr after receiving the initial
evacuation message. They were surprised that no one had come to check on them.
They were not aware they were allocated 30 min for preparation before evacuating.
Red Cross personnel reported a misunderstanding about the time allocation for evacu-
ation. Some people were anxious to get to the EC within 30 min while others thought
they had a lot longer. Furthermore, the EC in Hvolsvöllur was not well signposted and
some people (including the present authors) could not easily fi nd it.
Regardless of the problems that arose during the evacuation exercise, the gen-
eral mood at each center was good-humored. Residents joked about the fact that the
communication system did not work as planned. Some participants light-heartedly
explained that they would have been inundated by fl ood water due to the fact that
they had not received any evacuation message (these residents went to the evacuation
center on their own accord since they knew the exercise was taking place). Resident
behavior and comments indicated that many of them were there for the social aspect
of the day.
As a result of our observations during the exercise, specifi c questions were de-
veloped for the questionnaire survey to investigate the failure in communicating the
evacuation message, the time allocated to residents to evacuate and whether residents
would refuse to evacuate during a real situation.
Interviews with Emergency Management Officials
All emergency management officials gave a clear description of their departments'
role and their own personal role during an emergency situation. Each person that was
in direct contact with the evacuees reported an overall positive public response. Com-
ments in relation to this included:
• Approximately 65% of residents took part in the exercise which suggests that
people are probably taking this seriously.
• Almost everyone was positive about the evacuation. Some who did not receive
the evacuation message were mixed. Those who were not positive did not bother
coming.
