Chapter 30
Community-Based Disaster Risk Management
Field of expertise: School Disaster Safety, Disaster Risk Reduction Education

Takeshi Sato
Translated by Catherine Sachi Kikuchi

Summary
In order to prevent and mitigate disasters in a community, local groups such as neighborhood
associations and administrative wards, form organizations to carry out voluntary activities not only
in times of disaster but also in normal times. Community-based disaster risk management(CBDRM) leaders are required to be rooted in their local communities and to be visible. It is also
important to train the next generation of human resources for disaster risk reduction through theseactivities.
Keywords: community, community-based disaster risk management volunteer organization,community-based disaster risk management leader, school-community cooperation, children

Introduction
The number of community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) volunteer
organizations formed and the number of CBDRM leaders trained do not necessarily indicate thelevel of disaster preparedness of a community. What has been questioned through the experienceof the Great East Japan Earthquake is the ability of such organizations to demonstrate theircapabilities not only in times of disaster but also in everyday life. What is also important is theindependence and sustainability of the activities.

1: Problems Revealed by the Great East Japan Earthquake
What happened?
The experience of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of January 17, 1995, led to areassessment of the importance of CBDRM volunteer organizations from the perspective ofcitizens protecting their own communities. Efforts to develop and strengthen these groups havebeen made throughout Japan. At the same time, efforts are being made to train the leaders, whoplay a central role in the activities of CBDRM volunteer organizations.
The Great East Japan Earthquake that struck on March 11, 2011, caused severe andwidespread damage. Local government buildings and staff were also affected by the disaster,1

which meant that public assistance was limited in the immediate aftermath. For this reason, there
were high expectations for CBDRM volunteer organizations and the leaders to play the role of aid
provider. However, many CBDRM volunteer organizations were not equipped with the skills
expected by society to evacuate and guide people to emergency evacuation sites or to operate
evacuation centers. In other words, it is not always appropriate to evaluate a community’s level ofdisaster preparedness simply by the number of CBDRM volunteer organizations formed or thenumber of their leaders trained.
The reality of evacuation
The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred during a time when many students were atschool, and were under school supervision. It made us aware of the importance of coordinating
school-based disaster risk management and community-based disaster risk management in oureveryday lives. Let’s take a look at a case study of a junior high school in the coastal area of Iwate
Prefecture. Before the earthquake, the school's tsunami evacuation plan was to go to theschoolyard. No drills were conducted to evacuate in stages from the schoolyard. As the tsunami
surged over the seawall and into the schoolyard, the students who had evacuated to theschoolyard had to rush to higher elevations for emergency evacuation. However, local residents
had a different tsunami evacuation plan of escaping to higher ground, and evacuation routes had
been prepared for this purpose before the earthquake. This means that the tsunami evacuationplans for children were different from the ones for the adults living in the same area. Both plans
ensure safety, but it is important that both parties have a common understanding of the plans,
including the differences. After the earthquake, the junior high school revised its tsunami
evacuation plan to evacuate to higher ground, just like the local residents. Based on the lessons
learned, promoting school safety in cooperation with the local community and families is reflectedin the Plan for the Promotion of School Safety (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, 2012), and its importance is further increased in the Second Plan for the Promotion ofSchool Safety.

2: Paradigms Destroyed by the Earthquake
Conventional wisdom and necessary responses
In the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, there were three cases in Sendai
City, Miyagi Prefecture, in which evacuation centers inland were forced to take urgent measures.
The problem of some people not being able to return home
An elementary school in central Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, was flooded with evacuees from
Sendai Station and the surrounding areas, resulting in most of the evacuees in the evacuation
center being those who could not return home mainly due to mass transit disruptions after theearthquake. As a result, local evacuees were not able to enter the shelter. Shelters were originallydesignated for local people, and the idea of local residents supporting local evacuees was very
different compared to the reality. School administrators and neighborhood association officials
worked hard to ask neighboring public facilities and leading companies to accept some of theevacuees from the schools.

2The problem of opening a shelter
An elementary school in Sendai City, which had been designated as an evacuation center,
could not be used because of the damage caused to the building by the earthquake, even though
the facility had been reinforced. Local residents who had planned to use the school as anevacuation center were forced to go elsewhere. Stockpiles of emergency supplies that had been
maintained at the school had to be transferred to the newly opened evacuation center. For thefacility managers who suddenly had to accept these evacuees, the premise that the designatedevacuation center would be a base of operations collapsed.
The problem of evacuation center management
At a different elementary school in Sendai City, teachers and staff took the lead in runningthe evacuation center from when it first opened to when it finally closed, under the leadership of theprincipal. It was not possible to shift the management of the shelter from the school staff to thelocal neighborhood association. The more school teachers and staff are involved in the operationof the evacuation centers, the more time they lose in caring for the children and resuming theirschool-related duties. Supporting evacuees immediately after the opening of the evacuation center
was expected, however, the full duration of their support from the beginning to end of the shelter
being in use was far more of a burden than initially expected for the teachers and staff.

3: A New Approach
In order to make the most of the three lessons learned from the disaster, described in
section 2 above, let us discuss the social trends that have changed after the Great East Japan
Earthquake, focusing on the situation in Sendai City.
Maintenance of temporary accommodation for those who cannot easily return home
In order to avoid people who have difficulty returning home rushing to designatedevacuation centers, local governments and business establishments that have facilities that cantemporarily accommodate them are working on agreements to establish temporary stay facilities.
As an example, the Sendai Station Area Difficulty-Returning-Home Countermeasure Liaison
Council, a coalition of the city of Sendai, businesses in the Sendai Station area, and shopping
district promotion associations, has formulated guidelines for handling people in this situation, andregularly holds drills, including on how to guide them to temporary stay facilities. Businessestablishments also keep employees on the premises for a certain period of time to prevent people
who were having a difficult time returning home from rushing home at once (Rushing HomeControl).
Early Emergency Risk Assessment11

Emergency Risk Assessment is when an architectural expert directly investigates a building damagedby an earthquake to determine whether a secondary disaster will affect human safety within thebuilding. They check the risk of outer walls/windows falling, maintenance equipment attached to thebuilding, and building collapse due to aftershocks.

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In principle, evacuation centers accept evacuees after the facility manager confirms its
safety, but a safety check based on a professional’s perspective is required. Since the number ofadministrative officials in the architectural profession is limited, it has become a nationwide issue toconduct emergency risk assessments of evacuation centers as quickly as possible with thecooperation of private architectural engineers. Sendai City has concluded an agreement with agroup of building experts to expedite the safety check of evacuation centers. Specifically, in theevent of an earthquake disaster with a seismic intensity of 6-lower or above on the Japaneseseismic scale, the city of Sendai will assume that it has received a request for assistance even if it
has not, and private sector building engineers will begin to assess the evacuation centers that they
have been pre-assigned.
Evacuation Center Management Committee
In order to manage evacuation shelters, local groups such as neighborhood associations,evacuees, administrative staff in charge of evacuation shelters, as well as facility managers andstaff are supposed to form an evacuation shelter management committee and carry out systematicactivities. The evacuation center management committee will discuss in advance the division ofroles and the management of evacuation centers. Based on the results of these discussions, they
prepare a management manual for each evacuation center. For evacuation facilities that take
COVID-19 into consideration, their countermeasures are increasing, the number of shelters isincreasing, and the limitations of public assistance immediately after the disaster is becoming
clearer. Expectations of the local community members to help each other, through what is known
as mutual support, are increasing as well.

4: Achievements and the Future
A new approach to disaster science
As described in section 3, community-based mutual support requires CBDRM leaders as
key persons. In this section, we focus on the Sendai City Local Disaster Risk Management Leader(known in Japanese as the SBL), who is visible to the local community to the point that they are
required to provide personal information (address, name, telephone number, and gender) to thelocal neighborhood association, school, and other SBLs in order to attend training sessions.
The SBL in the Katahira district of Sendai City is continuing the “Disaster Risk Reduction x
Treasure Hunt Game (DRRTHG)” to teach local children about nature, history, and disasterprevention resources of the area while exploring the city (Sato et al., 2018). Photo 30-1 (a) shows
the children of Katahira, who were in the sixth grade at the time, asking to participate in community
development activities with local adults. Photo 30-1 (b) shows the children in first year junior highschool participating in a DRRTHG in which local SBLs acted as guides. In Photo 30-1 (c), thechildren in the second year of junior high school are presenting at the World Bosai Forum, and in(d), the children, now in their first year of high school are acting as guides for elementary school
students who participate in the treasure hunt.
Katahira district's model of disaster risk reduction activities during normal times can beseen as an example for training the next generation of human resources. We will contribute to theglobal promotion of community-based disaster risk reduction activities by disseminating andsharing good activity models (Sato et al., 2016) of CBDRM leaders in Japan and abroad.

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Photos 30-1a, b, c, d. The Disaster Risk Reduction x Treasure Hunt Game in Katahira District,Sendai City, and training the next generation of human resources

Conclusion - from the author
Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, there have been a number of activities for highschool and junior high school students to learn about disaster risk reduction, such as the Miyagi
Prefecture Board of Education's Disaster Risk Management Junior Leader Training Seminar andthe Great East Japan Earthquake Memorial Day, led by Tagajo High School. Some high school
students have voluntarily become certified as Miyagi Prefecture Disaster Risk ManagementInstructors. They are now CBDRM leaders as a result of their exchange experiences and learning
among students from different schools and different parts of Japan. We hope that opportunities forthe next generation of children to learn from each other will be provided on a regular basis, both inJapan and abroad, and that the next generation of disaster management professionals willcontinue to be nurtured through these activities.

References
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2012). Plans for the Promotion of
School Safety. https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/kenko/anzen/1320286.htm (In Japanese)
Sato, T., Sakurai, A., et al. (2018). Sustainable Community Development for Disaster Resilienceand Human Resources Development for Disaster Risk Reduction-- Katahira-Style Disaster
Resilient Community Development. Journal of Disaster Research, 13(7), 1288-1297.
http://doi.org/10.20965/jdr.2018.p1288
Sato, T., Sakurai, A., Oda, T., Murayama, Y. (2016). A Comparison of Community-Level DisasterManagement Activities in Japan and the U.S.: A Case Study of the U.S. Emergency Response
Team CERT and the Sendai City Local Disaster Management Leader SBL. Proceedings of theSociety for Community Safety, 29, 239-246. http://doi.org/10.11314/jisss.29.239 (In Japanese)5