International Journal
Sustainable Future for Human Security
J-SustaiN Vol. 2 No. 2 (2014) 16-28

DISASTER & MITIGATION

Filipinos’Views on
theDisaster Informationfor
the 2013 Super Typhoon
Haiyan in the Philippines
Natt Leelawata*, Cherry May R. Mateob,
Sandy Mae Gaspayb, Anawat Suppasric,Fumihiko ImamuracaDepartment of Industrial Engineering and Management,
Graduate School of Decision Science and Technology, Tokyo
Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japanb
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo,
Tokyo, Japanc
International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku
University, Miyagi, Japan

Received: May 19, 2014/ Accepted: December 31, 2014

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 theresearch objective of understanding how people view disasterwarnings. After conducting a pretest and a pilot test, aquestionnaire 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 2months 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 somesuggestions for enhancing warnings and people’s responses towarnings.
Keywords: Philippines; Survey; Typhoon Haiyan; Typhoon
Yolanda; Warning System.

*

Corresponding Author
Tel.: +81-80-4444-8382; E-mail: leelawat.n.aa@m.titech.ac.jp,
n.leelawat@gmail.com

http://www.j-sustain.com

1.

Introduction“Can sustainable development, along with the international
strategies and instruments aiming at poverty reduction andenvironmental protection, be successful without taking into
account the risk of natural hazards and their impacts? Can
the planet afford the increasing costs and losses due to socalled natural disasters? The short answer is, no.” [1].
Sustainable development is defined as “Developmentthat meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”[2], and resilience to natural hazards refers to “the ability toprotect lives, livelihoods and infrastructure fromdestruction, and to the capability to restore areas after
natural hazards has occurred” [3]. Disaster risk reduction
can be explained in terms of “[t]he systematic development
and application of policies, strategies and practices tominimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout asociety, to avoid (prevention) or to limit (mitigation andpreparedness) adverse impact of hazards, within the broad
context of sustainable development” [1]. Looking into theframework of disaster risk reduction, it can be seen that
there are “risk awareness and assessment”, “knowledge
development”, “public commitment and institutionalframeworks”, “application of measures”, and “early warning
systems” [1]. This study would like to address the issue ofresilience in disaster risk reduction or prevention.
A resilience framework consists of “agents”, “systems”,
and “institutions [4]”. Agents, which are individuals,
households, communities, or organizations, require thecharacteristics of responsiveness, resourcefulness, andcapacity to learn; meanwhile, one of the characteristics ofinstitutions is information flows (i.e., providing access tocorrect and meaningful information for private households
or other organizations) [4].Paton and Johnson studied
vulnerability, resilience, and disaster preparedness incommunities [5]. They also suggested that risk management
should promote resilience and preparedness through a mix
of strategies involving communication, managing
vulnerability, and facilitating resilience and growth [5].
Following on the abovementioned statements, early
warning systems, as one of the important parts of resiliencein disaster risk reduction [1], are the focus of this study.
Although there is an existing warning system, the numberof deaths is still high in many disasters in many countries.
This study seeks to investigate not only the technical systembut also, and especially, the information andcommunication issues because early warning systems are
considered a socio-technical problem that requires
understanding both technical and human artifacts.
Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region haveencountered major natural disasters (e.g., the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami, the 2008 Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, the2008 Sichua Earthquake, the 2011 Great East Japan
Earthquake and Tsunami, the 2011 Great Flood in Thailand,Leelawat, Natt;Mateo, Cherry May R.; Gaspay, Sandy May;Suppasri, Anawat; Imamura, Fumihiko / J- SustaiN Vol.2 No. 2 (2014)16-28

and the 2013 Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines).
This paper pays attention to the last example, the 2013 Super
Typhoon Haiyan.
From November 6to 8, 2013, Visayas, the central regionof the Philippines, was hit by Super Typhoon Haiyan(Filipino name: Yolanda), with a wind speed placed by the
Joint Typhoon Warning Center at approximately 315 km/h
maximum 1-minute sustained winds [6, 7, 8]. The typhoon
primarily impacted Leyte and Samar in the Philippines andalso the coastal areas of Vietnam and China [6]. It began asa relatively low air pressure system on November 3,
developed into a tropical storm within a day, followed byfurther development into a typhoon of the highest category,
category 5 (i.e., a super typhoon) by November 6, with apeak on November 7 [6].
The typhoon reached landfall in Eastern Samar, Leyte,
Cebu, Iloilo, and Palawan [7]. The track of the typhoon isshown in Figure 1. Figures 2and 3 show the areas affected bySuper Typhoon Haiyan. Figure 2 shows the storm surge thatcarried the M/V Eva Jocelyn, a small coastal freighter, overto the seaside residential area of Anibong in Tacloban City,
Leyte, and Figure 3 shows a typical residential village in
Tacloban City 6 weeks after the typhoon with electric posts
and street lamps still unrepaired. As a result, this typhoon
made a large impact on the economy, society, andenvironment (i.e., a triple bottom line [10]). The typhoon
had an economic impact of USD 9-17 billion and resulted inapproximately 6,300 deaths, as officially recorded [6, 7]. The
rdPhilippines ranks as the 3 most vulnerable country [11].
Paciente states “Typhoon Yolanda [Haiyan] is just a repeatof what happened in the past…”, but the damage was themost severe because more people had moved to the risk
areas [12].

Figure 2M/V Eva Jocelyn amidst the debris of what used to be aresidential area in Barangay Anibong, Tacloban, Leyte (6 weeks
after Super Typhoon Haiyan)

Although there were Super Typhoon Haiyan warnings,
many people did not evacuate to safe places (based on thisstudy’s survey and [13]). Both early warning systems andevacuation are considered measures and functions for
reducing disaster risk [14].This study focuses on the reasons
behind these events, from the typhoon warning to theevacuation period, with the research objective of examining
how people view disaster warnings and address evacuation
information, including their ultimate responses (i.e.,
decision to evacuate or not). The survey was conducted in
the areas that were affected by Super Typhoon Haiyan in
the Philippines. The results found some issues related topreferred disaster information, sources, messages, problems
in receiving warnings and responses to the warnings, etc.,
which are important factors in building community
resilience against future disasters.

Figure 1 Track of Super Typhoon Haiyan (Source: [9]. Reprinted
with permission)17

Leelawat, Natt;Mateo, Cherry May R.; Gaspay, Sandy May;Suppasri, Anawat; Imamura, Fumihiko / J- SustaiN Vol.2 No. 2 (2014)16-28

the evacuation of the survivors from Hurricane Hugo (1989)
and Hurricane Andrew (1992) [19]. They classified thereasons survivors did not evacuate despite the warning into
5 categories: “Hurricane [is] not a serious threat”,“Confident in safety”, “Avoidance/non-rational thinking”,“Inadequate
social/economic
resources”,
and“Territorial/home protection” [19].Some studies focus onprocess management inside the warning organization indeveloped country[20].

2.2 Asia-PacificthAccording to the report of the 6 Asian Ministerial
Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, the Asia-Pacificregion “is devastated by 45 percent of the global disasters,
42 percent of the economic losses, 83 percent of overall
deaths and 86 percent of people affected by disasters” [21]. It
is the region that has the highest number of reported
disasters and the highest fatality percentage [21]. This area
has encountered many major natural disasters such as the2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the 2008 Cyclone Nargis(Myanmar), the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake andTsunami, the 2011 Thailand Floods, and the 2013 Super
Typhoon Haiyan (the Philippines).
Through the HFA monitoring process in the Asia-Pacificarea, “The geographical coverage of regional multi-hazard
early warning systems has increased”, especially for thetsunami, cyclone and other hydro-meteorological early
warning systems at the national level [22]. However, “[m]ore
work is still needed to address extensive risks and transboundary risks. Other tools, such as multi-hazard risk
assessments and cost-benefit analysis are gaining
momentum. Capacity and information is needed to guidethese activities, with many countries noting that generating,sharing, managing and using data remains a complex task”[22]. Chang studied the storm hazards in Southeast Asia andfound that most of the selected cities (Hanoi, Jakarta, Kuala
Lumpur, Manila, Singapore, and Vientiane) recorded ahigher proportion of months in which rainfall exceeded the90th percentile over a 30-year period in 2003 to 2007
compared with 1998 to 2002; this “increasing frequency andintensity of extreme events translate into potential hazards”[23] in this region.
Some organizations do provide forecasts and warning
information to this area, such as the Regional Integrated
Multi-Hazards Early Warning System for Africa and Asia
(RIMES). In the lower Mekong Basin, the riparian countries(i.e., Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam)
cooperate in terms of data collection from their hydrometeorological stations in order to record and provide theearly warning system in the area [24]. In Southeast Asia, theRegional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC), a
center under the World Meteorological Organization’sWorld Weather Watch (WWW) is based in Tokyo, Japan[25]. The RSMC provides “a range of diagnostic andFigure 3 The affected area in Tacloban, Leyte (6 weeks after Super
Typhoon Haiyan)

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The next
section reviews previous research and practice in disasterwarning systems, especially in the Philippines. Section 3
explains our research framework and the methodology ofthis study. Section 4 provides our results. Lastly, Section
5offers a discussion and conclusions.

2.
DisasterBackground

Warning

System

2.1 Overall Background“Identify, assess and monitor disaster risks and enhance early
warning” is one of the five priority actions stated in the
Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005-2015 [15].
Currently, information and communication technology(ICT)is considered one of “the major challenges forcommunity disaster preparedness, survival, and recovery”[16] in terms of humanitarian action, particularly how ICT
can assist disaster-related international and national actors
more effectively during aftermaths, responses, recovery andreconstruction [17].The main three elements of the early
warnings are “forecasting and prediction of impending
events”, “processing and dissemination of warning topolitical authorities and population”, and “undertaking
appropriate reaction to warnings” [1].
Mileti identified the following warning factors that can
influence public response: “warning source”, “message
consistency”, “message accuracy”, “warning clarity”,“certainty of the message”, “sufficient information”,“guidance”,“warning
frequency”,“risk
location
information”, and “channel of communication” [18]. Riad etal. conducted a study to discover the factors that influenced18

Leelawat, Natt;Mateo, Cherry May R.; Gaspay, Sandy May;Suppasri, Anawat; Imamura, Fumihiko / J- SustaiN Vol.2 No. 2 (2014)16-28

prognostic products such as short, medium and long-term
weather predictions” [25].
Most countries in Southeast Asia have established theirown meteorological agencies to monitor storm events. For
example, Cambodia’s Department of Meteorology (DOM)
monitors 24 hours a day with typhoon analyses of weather
maps and weather reports from surrounding countries
including the Royal Observatory of Hong Kong [26]. DOM
directly reports warning messages to the public through TV,
radio, and newspapers [26].Indonesia has the Indonesian
Agency for Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics as
the national agency that provides 24-hour forecasts, 3-day
weather advisories, weekly weather advisories, and warning
services, which are provided by the Jakarta Tropical Cyclone
Warning Centre, Marine Meteorology Service, Severe
Weather Monitoring and Meteorological Information
subdivisions and supported by other units [27]. Laos’
Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH)
forecasts tropical cyclones based on the analysis of weather
maps and numerical weather predictions issued by regionalorganizations such as the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), RSMC Tokyo, theKorean Meteorological Agency (KMA), the Royal
Observatory of Hong Kong, the Vietnam National HydroMeteorological Service, RIMES, and other online sources[28]. The DMH provides the weather forecasts and warnings
through radio, TV, Internet services, local authorities, andnewspapers [28].The Thai Methodological Department(TMD) is an agency that monitors and forecasts the weather
in Thailand, and the National Disaster Warning Center(NDWC) is an official focal point for multi-hazard warnings[29, 30]. The channels used to broadcast to the public
include TV, website, warning towers, warning boxes at city
halls, village leader radio devices, etc. [30]. Vietnam
separated the areas of responsibility into 12 coastal areas[31]. Vietnam’s National Hydro-Meteorological Service(NHMS) issues the weather forecasts and warnings via thegovernment and local government agencies, the Central
Committee for Flood and Storm Control (CCFSC), the SubCommittee on Navigation, Communications and Search andRescue (NCSR), and the media (by telephone and fax), and
it issues forecasts to the fishing boats via Global
Telecommunication System (GTS), coastal broadcasting
radio, and internal hydro-meteorological radio [31].

received the notice during the flood [33]. Because thePhilippines is located in the “typhoon belt of the Pacific”,
which frequently encounters heavy precipitation [33], it is afitting subject for a study on the effects of disaster warning.
This study takes the opportunity to gather data fromresidents of the large-scale disaster, Super Typhoon Haiyan.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical andAstronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) is an
official and national institution who provides disaster
information. For the disaster information transfer system,
the information from PAGASA is transferred to the National
Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council(NDRRMC), a working group administered by the Office ofCivil Defense to be responsible for the people during
disasters or emergency; national media, Internet, andconcerned departments (i.e., National Power Corporation,
National Irrigation Administration, Department of Public
Works and Highways, and National Water Resources
Board); and PAGASA Regional Offices. Next, the NDRRMC
transfers the received information to the Regional,
Provincial, Municipality, and Barangay (i.e., village) level
through the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction andManagement Council (RDRRMC), the Provincial Disaster
Risk Reduction and Management Council (PDRRMC), theMunicipality Disaster Risk Reduction and Management
Council (MDRRMC), and the Barangay Disaster Risk
Reduction and Management Council (BDRRMC),
respectively [34, 35].
In the Philippines, public storm warnings are
categorized into 4 levels [36], as shown in Table 1. The
maximum is level 4, which indicates a situation in which all
people should have completely evacuated.
On November 4, 2013, at 8:00 a.m. PHT, Weather
Advisory No. 1 was announced by PAGASA, followed by
PAGASA’s Severe Weather Bulletin No. 1 at 11:00 a.m. PHT
on November 6. At 11:00 a.m. PHT on November 7, PAGASA
declared Severe Weather Bulletin No. 3 which warned of 7meter wave heights in the coastal areas for 18 hours before
the first landing in Guinuan, which was an appropriate
estimation based on the survey [34].
Super Typhoon Haiyan caused massive damage in thePhilippines. The total number of deaths was 6,300, thenumber of injured was 28,689, and the number of missing
was1,061 (as of April 17, 2014) [7, 37]. Table 2 shows theeffects from Super Typhoon Haiyan in terms of deaths andinjuries. Figure 4 shows satellite images of Anibong in
Tacloban before and after the typhoon hit.

2.3 The Philippines
Abon et al. studied community-based monitoring for flood
early warning system in the Central Bicol River Basin andfound that the inclusion of the communities as part of thesystem can impact the level of understanding of the disaster[32]. A study on Filipino online users’ perceptions about
flood disaster warning systems found that the existing
warning systems do not efficiently reach the public [33].
Many of the respondents did not receive any early warning,whereas most of those who received the warning actually19

Leelawat, Natt;Mateo, Cherry May R.; Gaspay, Sandy May;Suppasri, Anawat; Imamura, Fumihiko / J- SustaiN Vol.2 No. 2 (2014)16-28

Signal
1

Table 1 Public Storm Warning Signals [36]Expected Conditions
Precautionary Measures“A tropical cyclone will
“People are advised to listen toaffect an area”;
the latest severe weather bulletin
Winds: 30-60 km/h
issued by the Philippine
Intermittent rains: inAtmospheric, Geophysical andat least 36 h
Astronomical Services
Administration (PAGASA) every
six hours”

2“A tropical cyclone willaffect an area”;
Winds: > 60 km/h and> 100 km/h in at least
24 hPeople are cautioned not totravel by sea and air;“Disaster preparedness
agencies/organizations are inaction to alert theircommunities”

3“A tropical cyclone willaffect an area”;
Winds: > 100 km/h and> 185 km/h in at least
18 h“Travel is very risky especially by
air and sea”;“People are advised to seek
shelter in strong buildings,
evacuate low-lying areas, andstay away from the coasts andriverbanks”;“Disaster preparedness andresponse agencies/organizations
are in action with appropriate
response to the emergency”“All travel and outdoor activities
should be cancelled”;“Evacuation to safer shelters
should have been completed”;“The disaster coordinating
councils concerned and otherdisaster response organizations
are now fully responding toemergencies”

4“A very intense
typhoon will affectthe area”;
Winds: >185 km/h in
at least 12 h

Figure 4 Pre- and post-event satellite images of the Anibong
area in Tacloban (Source: [38]. Reprinted with permission)

3.
Research
Methodology

Framework

andThis study is a quantitative research design usinga
questionnaire survey. Subsection 3.1 explains the content of
the questionnaire, and subsection 3.2 describes the datacollection process.

3.1 Questionnaire Content

Table 2 Effects from Super Typhoon Haiyan[7, 37]
Number Percentage Number Percentage
ofof Deaths
ofof Injured
DeathsInjuredRegion IV-A
3
0.05
4
0.01
Region IV-B
19
0.30
61
0.21
Region V
6
0.10
21
0.07
Region VI
294
4.69
2068
7.21
Region VII
Cebu
73
1.16
348
1.21
Bohol
1
0.02
0
0.00
Region VIII:
Eastern
267
4.26
8,018
27.95
Samar
5402
86.18
15,672
54.63
Leyte
225
3.59
2378
8.29
Samar
8
0.13
118
0.41
Biliran
1
0.02
1
0.00
Region IX
1
0.02
0
0.00
Region XIII
Note. Percentage calculations rounded off to two decimal points
Region20

The first part of the questionnaire asks for the demographic
profile of the respondents, the second part focuses on thewarning system and the third part focuses on the evacuationof the respondents. The explanation of questions in thesecond part of the questionnaire is available in the
appendix.
The pretest was conducted with 10 Ph.D. students at theTokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, in order to ensurethat the survey design was necessary, sufficient, andappropriate; the pilot test was conducted with 6 Filipino
students at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in order to
identify the practical problems with implementation before
developing the final version of the questionnaire based on
the results, comments and feedback from the pretest andpilot test. After each test, the questionnaire was revised byremoving unnecessary components and modifying the
choices to make them suitable for Filipinos (e.g., level ofincome, method of receiving information) as well as revising
the language to make it clear and easy to understand. The
survey not only provided an English version; the questions
were translated into the Filipino language, and a backtranslation was conducted to ensure translation adequacy
before conducting the final survey. In the survey, both
English and Filipino questionnaires were distributed.

Leelawat, Natt;Mateo, Cherry May R.; Gaspay, Sandy May;Suppasri, Anawat; Imamura, Fumihiko / J- SustaiN Vol.2 No. 2 (2014)16-28

3.2 Data Collection

PHP 30,000–69,999(USD 685–1,597)
PHP 70,000–139,999(USD 1,587–3,196)
PHP 140,000–249,999(USD 3,197–5,707)
PHP 250,000–499,999(USD 5,708–11,417)>PHP 500,000(>USD 11,418)
Own house
Yes
No
Own house was destroyed
YesNo
Previous experience of Typhoon
Yes, signal 1
Yes, signal 2
Yes, signal 3
Yes, signal 4No
Occupation
Public servant
Business owner/vendor
Service provider
Researcher
Student
Housewife
RetiredLocation when typhoon hit
Tacloban in Leyte
Cebu in Cebu
Tagbilaran in Bohol
Talalora in Samar

The survey was conducted as a paper-based survey inDecember 2013 because the authors wanted to collect thedata when the memories and experiences were as fresh as
possible in the affected areas of the Philippines, specificallyin Tacloban, Cebu, Tagbilaran, and Talalora, among others.
This timing was still during the late emergency response
phase, during which most people were busy with clean-up
and home repairs. Thus, it was quite difficult to persuade alarge number of people to participate in the survey. The
study respondents were limited to residents in somebarangays such as Barangay 77, Barangay 64 Sagkahan(Tacloban City) because of the difficulties in finding
cooperative respondents. Questionnaires were delivered to
selected residents, prioritizing those who lived in lowincome households. As a result, a total of 37 responses werereceived,which was a 100 percent response rate. Although it
is a rather small number, it was a representative sample of
the actualsurvivors who experienced the disaster in thedamaged areas.
All of the respondents were Filipino. Their demographic
profiles are provided in Table 3.There were more female
respondents (62.2 percent) than males (37.8 percent). Mostof the respondents had monthly incomes lower than PHP
10,000 (or USD 228) (75.7 percent). It also can be seen thateveryone had previously experienced typhoons, and most ofthem had experienced a Signal 3 (78.4 percent) (see thedefinition of signal levels in Table 1). It also can be observedthat most of the respondents remained in Tacloban in Leyte(81.1 percent), a city that was severely damaged by thetyphoon.
Table 3 Demographic Profiles
Characteristic
Percent
GenderFemale
62.2
Male
37.8
Age
0–20 years old
32.4
21–30 years old
19.0
31–40 years old
16.2
41–50 years old
16.2
51–60 years old
0.0More than 60 years old
16.2
Marital status
Single51.4
Married
37.8
Divorced
8.1
Widowed
2.7
Have child(ren) under 18 years
old
Yes
18.9
No
78.2
Average monthly householdincome<PHP 10,000 (<USD 228)75.7
PHP 10,000–29,999(USD 228–684)
2.7

4.

5.4
0.0
2.7
0.0
2.7
75.7
24.3
73.0
27.0
2.7
8.1
78.4
10.8
0.0
2.7
8.1
43.2
2.7
29.7
2.7
10.8
81.1
8.1
5.4
5.4

Results

As shown in Figure 5, the most frequently selected type of
information for important disaster-related decisions (e.g.,
evacuation) is that pertaining to the safety of family andfriends, followed by availability of food and water for theperiod before and during the typhoon; the availability offood and water became the most important type of
information needed for the period after the typhoon.
Hospital/medical center information was ranked third
during and after the typhoon period.

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limitation of this question. Because the study aimed toemphasize the official website of PAGASA, the website
choice was listed as the PAGASA website, which could have
led to different results from other choices because of theorganization-specific name.

Figure 5Information considered to be important for all disasterrelated decisions before, during, and after the Super Typhoon
Haiyan (unit: number of responses)

Figure 6 shows the most-trusted sources of information.
PAGASA is the most-trusted source, followed by NDRRMC,
the Government of the Philippines, the Philippines’ news
media, the local government, and local leaders.

Figure 7 The preferred methods for officials to issue typho on
warnings (unit: number of responses)

In the survey, only 1 respondent did not receive atyphoon warning for Super Typhoon Haiyan. According to
Figure 8, those who received the warning found that theexisting warning contained information on locations thatwere expected to be affected by the typhoon (30percent),
estimated time before the typhoon (30 percent), estimatedseverity level (22 percent), and accessible evacuation centers(18 percent).
When considering the type of information respondents
actually wanted to receive (see Figure 9), the most preferred
types were the estimated time before the typhoon’s arrival(28 percent), the locations to be affected by the typhoon (26percent), its estimated severity level (25 percent), andaccessible evacuation centers (21 percent).

Figure 6 The most trusted sources of information (unit: number of
responses)

Figure 7indicates the preferred methods for officials toissue typhoon warnings. Television was the most frequently
selected for all times (i.e., 1 week before, a few days before,
and just before impact). However, the score for television
decreased as the typhoon approached (i.e., television’s score
for a few days before the typhoon approached was lower
than the score for 1 week before, and the score for justbefore the typhoon approached was lower than the score fora few days before the typhoon approached). Unlike
television,for which the preference decreased over theperiod, the preference for radio increased as the typhoon’s
impact approached. However, it is necessary to consider the22

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Figure 8 Information contained in typhoon warnings
Figure 10 Problems related to disaster information acquisition

Figure 9 Preferred typhoon warning information
Figure 11 Evacuation execution

The respondents’ most frequently raised problem
regarding information acquisition was difficulty searchingfor the necessary information or locating the necessary
information (27 percent), followed by inability to accessinformation owing to mobile congestion, power outages,
etc. (24 percent), as shown in Figure 10.
As shown in Figure 11, although most of the respondents
received the typhoon warning, 47 percent did not evacuate
to shelters. Moreover, combined with the portion that did
not evacuate until after the typhoon passed (6 percent),
then more than half (53 percent) did not evacuate before or
during the typhoon.
According to Figure 12, most did not evacuate because
they were worried about the safety of their family members,
followed by believing that it was more dangerous to go
outside their residences.
Figure 13 shows the evacuation decisions for futuretyphoon warnings. Only 16 percent believe that evacuation
centers are secure and safe and are therefore planning toevacuate to them; the majority (68 percent) will only
evacuate once they have made sure that the evacuation
centers are secure and safe.

Figure 12 Reasons for not evacuating (unit: number of responses)

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best method for officials to warn citizens regarding
typhoons. In the Philippines, television-broadcasting
programs generally consist of national and local programs
allocated by timeslot, especially for news. Therefore, viewers
are provided with an overall country view and the local view
on situations. However, radio is another alternative forfollowing warnings. Radio is a localized broadcasting
medium and is broadcasted in the local language. The
Philippines is an island country, and the people use not only
the English and Filipino languages but also regional
languages and dialects. For example, the Visaya language istypically used in Cebu and Tagbilaran, and the Waraylanguage is used in Tacloban and Talalora. In addition, theradio has dedicated stations for news and current affairs.
Normally, FM stations in the Philippines provide musicalentertainment, whereas AM stations are for news or drama.
In the case of Super Typhoon Haiyan, the primary reason
for choosing radio was likely its mobility (i.e., radios arebattery-operated, and hence, can be used in an emergency).
In Tacloban City, a power blackout often ensues after arelatively strong typhoon (i.e., Category 3) [49]. Thus,
battery-operated radios are reliable sources of information
for the locals. However, Typhoon Haiyan was so strong thatit disabled all forms of communication in many areas of
Leyte, especially in Tacloban City. During the first few daysof the aftermath, the locals had no reliable source of
information. In Tacloban City, the most reliable means ofcommunicating with nearby areas was via satellite phones[49]. Because of the failure of the existing communicationlines, local new reporters transmitted information via
satellite broadcast [50], and some had to travel to nearby
islands such as Cebu City to deliver video telecasts [51]. Thiswas one significant cause of the difficulties in efficiently
distributing relief goods and medical assistance during thefirst few days after the typhoon.
Therefore, one lesson learned is this: The
communication infrastructure must be carefully considered,especially in disaster-prone areas.
Apart from the source and the medium, as Mileti
observed, sufficient information in the warning message isanother important factor that influences the public’s
response [18]. It appears that most people wanted to know
the typhoon’s estimated arrival time and location. The
estimated severity level and information regarding
evacuation also cannot be omitted either.
The problems experienced in information acquisition are
primarily the difficulty in searching for or locating disaster
information and the inability to access information becauseof mobile congestion, power outages, etc. It is necessary foreveryone to prepare themselves for emergency situations. A
method for accessing information should be at hand,
especially for critical cases when all forms ofcommunication are possibly disabled.
Although most of the respondents received a warning,
more than half of them did not evacuate before the typhoon
hit their areas. The primary reason was their concern about

Figure 13 Evacuation decisions for future typhoons

5.

Discussion and Conclusions

Having shown the results of the survey in the previous
section, the findings are discussed in this section along withsome suggestions.
There are many interesting issues raised by the findings.
First, it can be seen that the safety of family and friends is
considered to be the most important information to haveduring a disaster. Filipinos are similar to other Southeast
Asian cultures that consider the family to be a vital unit [46,47, 48]. Thus, it is not surprising that people consider thesafety of their loved ones to be the most important
information. Food is one of the four basic requirements forliving, so in an emergency, it is also reasonable to consider
food and water supply to be important information,
particularly because they may not be available post-disasterbecause of logistical problems. According to some survivors,
during the first few days after Haiyan struck, money was notconsidered valuable, and most people had to pay with foodsuch as rice and canned goods for other goods and services.
Furthermore, information related to hospital and medical
centers is also important, especially during and after impact
because the number of deaths and injuries would
dramatically increase during that period from direct andindirect causes [7, 34, 37].
It can be said that as an official national organization forproviding flood and typhoon warnings, PAGASA has beenvery successful in establishing itself as a source that people
follow and trust, along with NDRRMC, the Government of
the Philippines, the country’s news media, local
governments, and local leaders. Therefore, it is necessary to
focus on information sharing among these trusted
organizations in order to give residents the same necessary
and correct information regardless of the organization fromwhich they tend to access their information.
The issues regarding communication medium are quite
interesting. Based on the results, television tends to be the24Leelawat, Natt;Mateo, Cherry May R.; Gaspay, Sandy May;Suppasri, Anawat; Imamura, Fumihiko / J- SustaiN Vol.2 No. 2 (2014)16-28

the safety of family and friends, followed by a belief thatoutside would be more dangerous than within theirresidences and uncertainty regarding the typhoon’s severity
level. Another suggestion would be to specify clearly thatstaying in one’s own residence is not as safe as is believed inan event such as a super typhoon. Then, people could
evacuate immediately. One example is the latest warningclassification in Japan by the Japan Meteorological Agency(JMA), which established ‘emergency warning’ (with clear
statements such as “Emergency Warnings are intended forextraordinary phenomena expected to be a scale that will far
exceed the warning criteria”, “Residents should not let down
their guard even if no Emergency Warning is currently ineffect in the area…”, “The possibility of a catastrophe is higheven if the area has not experienced a disaster for several
decades…” [52]) as a critical level that requires everyone toevacuate to shelters or safe places.
Last but not least, the survey found that people intended
to evacuate in the event of future typhoon warnings as longas their evacuation centers were secure and safe. There wasevidence that some temporary shelters were not safe during
the typhoon [34, 50].A total of 16 percent of respondents
already believed that the centers were secure and safe andtherefore planned to evacuate. In order to increase people’s
responses to the evacuation process, local governments
should ensure that their evacuation centers are secure andsafe, and related organizations must be responsible forcommunicating their security and safety to citizens.
Better understanding of people’s views regarding
warning systems would be helpful for supporting andshaping warning system development and improvement.
Based on the funding and individual preferences, it ispossible to propose solutions for those issues. When awarning system serves as an accessible and accurate way ofcommunication, citizens can receive notifications andalerts. Then, they can realize the potential impact of anatural disaster and response according to the appropriate
instructions. This will help to build individual resilience fordisaster prevention and disaster risk reduction. When
residents respond, such as by evacuating, the potential
impact in terms of casualties will be reduced.
This study discussed the findings from a questionnaire
survey with respondents who had experienced Super
Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines; it provided someunderstanding and suggestions based on the findings.
However, it is important to understand the limitations of
the results of this study. Because the study collected data
during the early period of disaster recovery andreconstruction, only a small number of respondents wereavailable. Nevertheless, all respondents had experienced
this severe disaster, and all provided with useful
information based on their recent experience—the survey
was conducted only 2 months after the event. Future studies
may conduct a survey when the situation has improved andmore people are available to engage in the survey. In
addition, conducting a survey online is another alternative

to expand the number of respondents. Moreover, this study
provided the preliminary results of the findings; there is still
the need for posttests (e.g., interviews with the survivors) inorder to link these results to social phenomena and gain
more understanding with validation. The study ofauthorities’ perceptions is also important and warrants
further research.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT); Tokyo Tech Academy for Co-creative Education ofEnvironment and Energy Science (ACEEEES) Leading
Program; Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.,through the International Research Institute of Disaster
Science (IRIDeS) at Tohoku University; Prof. Junichi Iijima(Tokyo Institute of Technology); Prof. Taikan Oki (The
University of Tokyo), Asst.Prof. Shuichi Kure, Asst.Prof.
Carine J. Yi, Asst.Prof. Erick Mas, Mr. Bruno Adriano(Tohoku University); Ms. Sharilee Angela A. Gaspay-Mauro
(IEDA Relief); and Mr. Joseph Addawe (OCHA-Philippines).
Lastly, the authors would like to thank all of those who
helped us to disseminate the survey and all of the
respondents for their collaboration in this survey, as well as
the editor and all four anonymous reviewers for their usefulcomments and suggestions.

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according to [40, 41, 42, 43], for example, “Safety of family,
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Question: Which information do you think could havehelped you make important disaster-related decisions during
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o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Overall damage
Safety of family/friends
Availability of food/water
Distribution of donation/relief
Waste disposal
Reliability of utilities/lifelines (e.g., electricity, water,gas, fuel)Traffic/transportation infrastructure
Hospitals/medical centers
Current
typhoonsituationandaffected-areamonitoring map
Existing disaster preparedness plan
Disaster warning
Availability and accessibility of evacuation andemergency shelters

Next, because Mileti identified the information source asa warning factor [18], one question sought to identify thefive most-trusted sources of information. The items used inthis question were adapted or developed according to [33].
Question: Which are the five most-trusted sources of
information?

Appendix: Explanation of Questionnaire Content
The questionnaire comprised two parts: the first asked the
respondents to select the top five types of information they
thought would help them to make important disasterrelated decisions (e.g., evacuation). Timely and accurate
information can save lives in disasters. Residents may
require different information at different periods of time orin different situations. Three periods of time were asked
about (i.e., before Super Typhoon Haiyan landed in thePhilippines, during the time that Super Typhoon Haiyan
was in the Philippines, and after Super Typhoon Haiyan had
passed through the Philippines) in order to identify thedifferences and similarities in preferences from thetemporal perspective, which is one of the perspectives in
research on communication and information systems [39].
The items used in this question were adapted or developed

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
27

PAGASA (Philippines Atmospheric, Geophysical &Astronomical Services Administration)
Government of the Philippines
National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management
Council (NDRRMC)
Provincial or local government
District &sub district governments
Local leader
Philippines’ news media
Philippines’ research/academic institutes
International organization
Foreign government
Foreign news media
Foreign research/academic institute
Family, friends, colleagues, etc.
Other (….)

Leelawat, Natt;Mateo, Cherry May R.; Gaspay, Sandy May;Suppasri, Anawat; Imamura, Fumihiko / J- SustaiN Vol.2 No. 2 (2014)16-28o

The next set of questions required the respondent tochoose the best way for officials to warn them about atyphoon in 3 situations (i.e., 1 week before impact, a few
days before impact, and just before impact). Items used inthis question were adapted or developed based on [44].
Some items were added to address the specific situation ofSuper Typhoon Haiyan and the Philippines.
Question: What is the best way for officials to warn you
about a typhoon for 1 week before its impact?
Question: What is the best way for officials to warn you
about a typhoon a few days before its impact?
Question: What is the best way for officials to warn you
about a typhoon just before impact?
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

o

The next part of the questionnaire focused on
evacuation. The first question asked the respondents
whether they had evacuated their homes when Super
Typhoon Haiyan hit their local areas. The items weredeveloped and adapted based on [45].
Question: Did you evacuate your house or apartment
when Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) hit your local area at
any time? When did you evacuate?
o
o
o
o

Siren
Phone call
Television
Door-to-door message
E-mailText message (SMS)RadioPAGASA website
Other (….)

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Places that would be affected by the typhoon
Estimated severity level
Accessible evacuation centers
Estimated time before typhoon’s arrival
Other (….)

o
o
o
o

Security of house/property (i.e., burglars)
Uncertainty regarding expected typhoon level – might
subsideEvacuation centers are poorly maintained
Individual or family’s house is multi-story
Location of nearby evacuation center is unknown
Safety of all family members must be ensured first
Do not know the right time to leave
Inconvenient/over-packed evacuation centers
More dangerous to go outside
Hassle of packing up and thinking what to bring
Other (….)

The last question asked the respondents to select asingle answer for their future evacuation decision if atyphoon were forecasted to hit their hometown in the
future: will they and their family evacuate to a nearby
evacuation center or not.
Question: In the future, if a typhoon is forecasted to hit
your hometown, would you and your family evacuate to a
nearby evacuation center?

The respondent then was asked whether he/she believedthat the typhoon information was sufficiently accessible.
Because this study was interested in identifying the
problems related to information acquisition, the nextquestion asked the respondents to choose multiple answers
for the types of problems they experienced related toacquiring disaster information. The items used in thisquestion were adapted or developed based on [40, 41].
Question: Did you encounter any problem related todisaster information acquisition?
oYes, before it hit.
Yes, while it was occurring.
Yes, after it had passed.
No. I/we did not evacuate.

For those persons who did not evacuate, the nextquestion asked for the top five reasons that they did notevacuate before or during the typhoon. The items used inthis question were adapted or developed according to [33].
Question: Why did you not evacuate your house before or
during Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan)?

The next question asked the respondents to choose
multiple answers for the types of information that the
typhoon warning contained and another question asked forthe types of information that the typhoon warning should
include. The items used in these two questions wereadapted and developed based on [33].
Question: What kind of information did the typhoon
warning contain?
o
o
o
o
o

Did not have any issues with unclear or difficult tounderstand information
Other (….)

oooUnable to access information because of mobile
congestion, power outages, etc.
Difficulty searching for or locating disaster information
Could not understand information because of lack oflanguage comprehension
Was misled or confused by rumors and/or exaggerated
or false information
Was confused by conflicting or varying information

o

o

28

Yes, if the evacuation centers are secure and safe.
Yes. I believe the evacuation centers are safer.
No. I don’t know where the evacuation centers or safe
places are.
No. I don’t trust the safety of evacuation centers.
Other (….)