澤田 雅浩

This survey report investigates the gap between disaster prevention weather information and residents’ evacuation behavior during the August 2014 Hiroshima Heavy Rain Disaster. Although meteorological forecasting technology has improved, it does not always lead to effective resident action. To understand this discrepancy, we conducted semi-structured interviews with five residents in the affected Asaminami Ward and analyzed 88 narratives from published experience records. We mapped residents’ subjective “moments of anxiety” and “evacuation decisions” against objective meteorological data (precipitation and warnings). The survey results reveal that residents’ sense of crisis often lagged significantly behind the issuance of warnings and was instead triggered by direct sensory perceptions of danger (e.g., sounds of rain and debris flow). This report provides qualitative data highlighting the specific cognitive barriers to using weather information in rapid-onset disasters.

In industrial clusters that are affected by earthquakes and tsunamis, advance countermeasures are necessary to ensure the continuity of business operations of companies. This article presents the results of a questionnaire survey of small- and medium-sized enterprises in Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, to determine the current status of disaster countermeasures, and a questionnaire survey of residents’ awareness of risks and their current countermeasures.