Disaster risk and evacuation strategies awareness of communities in borongan city: Inputs to borongan city disaster risk reduction Agenda

Disaster consciousness is an utmost tool in the mitigation of disaster hazards, thus individual should be disaster conscious if they are to have a higher chance of surviving the onslaught of disaster. Disaster risk awareness and evacuation strategies awareness are among the most crucial areas of hazard mitigation, hence there is a need to establish these areas of awareness in the population which has been determined to be vulnerable to the harmful impact of disaster. The study aimed to determine the disaster risk and evacuation strategies awareness of the participants. It further aimed to find out whether there is significant relationship between two variables. Descriptive correlation research design was employed in the study. It was participated in by 6,086 household heads from forty-five (45) barangays of Borongan that were found to be vulnerable to specific disasters such as flooding, storm surge, earthquake, tsunami and landslide. Selection of participants was through simple random sampling using Slovin’s formula based on the 2010 Census of Population and Housing conducted by the National Statistics Office (now known as Philippine Statistics Authority). Data was gathered in July, 2016 through a Likert-type survey questionnaire. The study’s results established that the respondents have a very high level of risk awareness but very low level of evacuation strategies awareness. It likewise showed that the respondents’ disaster risk awareness had positive negligible relationship to their evacuation strategies awareness. The findings indicated that although the participants are conscious of their vulnerabilities to the onslaught of disasters, they lack knowledge regarding the mechanisms set forth by the barangay officials through the Barangay Disaster Risk Reduction Management (BDRRM) as to the selected areas and proceedings of evacuation from the site of vulnerability to a relatively safer site. The gap which is found between disaster risk awareness and evacuation strategies awareness is such that implications point towards the assumption that although the population knows that they are in danger from the disasters they very little about where to go, what to take and what to do to minimize the hazards brought about by disaster. The study calls for a more serious, intensive and extensive dissemination of information at household level concerning the pre-disaster evacuation strategies within communities found to be vulnerable to disasters. Utilization of the tri-media and other creative means of public awareness campaigns such as road shows maybe effective means of communicating evacuation strategies to the public.