Factors motivating Mexico City residents to earthquake mass evacuation drills

Abstract

Evacuation drills may constitute a key activity for preparing for an emergency due to an earthquake. The paper presents the results of an analysis of participants' motivations on the factors leading to conducting drills on 19 September every year in Mexico City; the sample size considered for the analysis was N ¼ 2400. In particular, the following research question has been addressed: What factors predict the likelihood that respondents would report that they agree on conducting mass evacuation drills yearly? The approach has been the application of logistic regression technique to identify these factors. Of the 19 initial explanatory variables, in the final model, only seven variables and one interaction term, were significantly associated with the outcome variable; i.e.: age (Odds Ratio (OR) ¼ 1.366; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) ¼ 1.039-1.795); occupation (OR ¼ 3.378; CI ¼ 1.457-7.830); frequency of drills: one/year (OR ¼ 2.128; CI ¼ 1.610-2.812); knowledge vs. drills (OR ¼ 1.394; CI ¼ 1.172-1.658); 'perception vulnerability city' (OR ¼ 1.271; CI ¼ 1.091-1.480); warning time (OR ¼ 1.266; CI ¼ 1.1036-1.548); usefulness of the SASMEX (OR ¼ 0.783; CI ¼ 0.615-0.998); and 'perception vulnerability city' by occupation interaction (OR ¼ 0.786; CI ¼ 0.643-0.961). Further research may be needed to gain a better understanding of people's motivations on evacuation drills taking place anytime during the day or at night, and whether evacuation drills should be unannounced. 1985 earthquake that hit the Capital City [21], the Seismic Alert System of Mexico (SASMEX), an earthquake early warning system (hereafter either EEW or SASMEX), was implemented and it is being regarded as

Superposed Natural Hazards and Pandemics: Breaking Dams, Floods, and COVID-19

“…Subsequently, disaster preparedness is key during a pandemic, and the majority of this responsibility still falls on individuals, including having a "go kit" ready for emergencies with flashlights, bottled water, face masks, latex gloves, medications, hand sanitizers, soap, disinfectant wipes, and thermometers, etc. This brings our attention to the importance of evacuation drills as a key activity in preparing for an emergency due to a multi-hazard event (e.g., a natural hazard and a pandemic) [95]. Yet, we should not forget about mutual trust between individuals and the government/society [96] which yields to a successful emergency mission.…”

Influencing Factors on the Usefulness of an Earthquake Early Warning System during the 2017 Mexico City Earthquakes

“…As already mentioned, the present study is part of an ongoing research on the residents of the capital city reactions to the usefulness of the SASMEX system in relation to the 2017 earthquakes. The variables considered in the analysis have been those reported in [40]. The non-probability and cross-sectional study were conducted just a few weeks after the two earthquakes; the sample size of the present study is n = 1,644.…”

“…The non-probability and cross-sectional study were conducted just a few weeks after the two earthquakes; the sample size of the present study is n = 1,644. (For further details on the data collection and the participants' consent of the study, see [2,40]).…”

“…Table 1 shows seven sets of explanatory variables considered in the analysis. As mentioned in a previous section, the present study employs these sets of predictor variables described in detail in [40]. It should be mentioned that the considered explanatory variables apply for the two cases.…”

Self-Organized Crowd Dynamics: Research on Earthquake Emergency Response Patterns of Drill-Trained Individuals Based on GIS and Multi-Agent Systems Methodology

“…Most of the studies reported in the literature investigated human behaviors in earthquakes, hoping to obtain valuable solutions to provide sufficient support for evacuation decision-making [ 4 , 5 ]. Some of the issues being addressed are those related to finding the factors that prompt people to participate in mass evacuation drills [ 6 ]. To conduct quantitative research on the effectiveness of evacuation strategies, one of the most critical tasks is to predict people’s evacuation behavior before the earthquake.…”