As stated in the introduction our three goals for our outreach project was to 1) Impart important and relevant information about the earthquake itself and expected impacts, 2) Motivate people to seek out what they lack and take some steps toward individual preparation 3) Empower people by uncovering their own latent skills and teaching the importance of improvisation.
Most importantly, we aimed to bring awareness about the earthquake hazard posed by the Cascadia Subduction Zone into the minds of our attendees in a way that informed, motivated, and empowered them. One way to measure this is known as hazard intrusiveness, the manner in which the understanding of a risk is within the public’s conscious and a key element in getting an audience member to adopt the hazard adjustment measures (Lindell & Perry, 2012). In hopes of achieving an audience that will take protective action, so they can be self-reliant rather than reliant on the college, we presented information, skill-sets, and resources to our attendees.
The exit survey revealed that, except for one person, everyone walked away from the clinic feeling that there were things they could do to lessen the impacts of the earthquake and prepare for the aftermath. Only one person indicated that they felt overwhelmed by the prospect of this earthquake and didn’t know what to do next. Most people expected and enjoyed the hands-on experience. People wished that we had covered strategies for managing survival campus-wide, making emergency kits, safe sanitation, emotional coping, fire starting, and learning how to contact people after the event. They were impressed with their shelter-making skills, water purification, improvisation, and having WFR training. They intend to look more into water purification, make equipment accessible, share information, practice survival skills, and be more aware of their surroundings. The average answer to how motivated they felt to prepare was a 3.75/5.
Open House
In the open house, in order to see what the audience’s initial knowledge of the earthquake hazard was, we had them participate in a quiz/trivia to see how they would answer the questions posed. The questions were related to information about earthquakes. The question that posed the greatest challenge to participants asked about the most vulnerable aspect of Portland in the event of an earthquake: the fuel infrastructure. The attendees did however view the bridges in Portland as being most vulnerable, which would be understandable since many of the bridges in Portland have been deemed unable to withstand a major earthquake.
The trivia also revealed that the attendees had a sufficient understanding of what the best course of action would be in the event of an earthquake: to get under a desk (see appendix 1). This level of basic understand of earthquakes, was reflected throughout the Open House session. However, when it came to the infrastructural consequences of a major earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, people were less certain.
In the open house we took notes on the discussions that took place with community members and LC students (on and off campus). In the community member discussion, one major topic that was observed was the topic of people’s houses. The community members looked to be in process of answering the 4th question in the PADM information flow (what is the best method of protection?); they brought up concerns about when and how to turn off gas to their homes, cost and effectiveness of retrofitting a house, pets and how to keep them safe without endangering one’s self, and sanitation. Though we couldn’t see if the community members began the information seeking process in answering these concerns, we did record that two of the community members had gotten or are planning to get NET training this year; an indication of protective action.
In the on-campus student discussions we noted that the conversations veered towards what roles students would play and what resources they had. This was interesting because unlike the community members, this discussion jumped right into examining the best way to take protective action. This may be due to that numerous members of this group were involved with College Outdoors, possessed Wilderness First Responder Training, or were Resident Assistants (RAs) in the dorms on campus. This lines up well with the EPPM in that there was a strong sense of efficacy between the students and the threat facing the school, they accepted the risk communication and danger control processes were initiated.
For the off campus students discussion it was similar to the community members discussion in examining the 4th question in the PADM information flow (what is the best method of protection?); what was brought was the concern of communication between a command source and the resources cars and camping gear will contribute.
Overall, the Open House had a great turnout for the on campus students since they had a more solid plan of taking protective action. Though, two of community members planned to further their knowledge and skills by receiving NET training, the group still has a lot of questions to bring answers to before possessing the knowledge to take protective action. The off campus group is in a similar situation as the community members. Though, the community members and off-campus students didn’t arrive at a method of taking protective action, they did show that they understood how they could possess more efficacy regarding preparing for an earthquake event, a good sign that they will further their information and implement danger-control processes of the EPPM.
Clinic
In our earthquake clinic, we invited LC students, staff, and surrounding neighbors. In total 12 people attended and participated in the activities; 9 LC students and 3 neighbors. This proved to be a very good number of people to conduct the clinic with equal groups of 3 and 1 neighbor in each group, which generally reflected a real-life scenario in which multi-scale coordination takes place (Baker and Refsgaard 2007).
Since the clinic was structured in a game like fashion, it was interesting to see in the first activity how there was more of a competitive quality to how each group went about building their shelter for challenge 1 (see challenge 1 in appendix E). More so, the amount of improvisation and foraging that took place between the groups varied greatly. One group made a lot of effort to use the little resources they had to make a shelter. However, aside from the tree branch they tied their tarp to, they didn’t use any other found objects to assist in the construction of their shelter. Similarly, another group used a premade improvised structure of railing and bricks, that was then wrapped in tarp to make a sound structure. And finally, the third group used a large number of found objects to assist in their shelter construction. It was clear to see that the groups who used more improvisation of objects had better shelters as a result, since they could utilize the resources they got from the central tarp more sparingly.
In the second challenge, the groups were instructed to filter and purify water (see challenge 2 in appendix E). In this activity the groups showed much more collaboration in sharing bleach to purify the water and a towel to filter out large particles from the water. This could be due to the groups being much closer together compared to the previous activity. It was interesting to see how important and useful a single object became when the activity specified to making drinkable water.
At the conclusion of the event, we made some last remarks on the event, suggested further resources for for participants to further their knowledge, and had them complete an exit survey. The survey aimed to determine what degree hazard intrusiveness occurred in our participants. The first instance of communicating risk occurred in regards to the clinic, and began with advertising for the event with the flyers and by word of mouth from the class members. We see this in the exit survey, in which the expectations of the clinic were met and how the attendees understood that the risk we were addressing would include elements of doing survival skills, improvised learning, and hands on activities in regards to the earthquake theme (see question 1, appendix F).
To help bring awareness to the resources individuals already possessed before the event, we asked what skills people had that surprised them in the completing of the challenges (see question 3, appendix F). It was great to see that improvisation/creativity was major takeaway people saw they had as a skill-set for handling a disaster scenario.
In question 4, we had 4 of our participants write that they planned accumulate resources that would be of assistance in an earthquake event; such as creating an emergency kit, storing resources in a car or outside, and organizing resources. This was a good sign, in that individuals with more access to essential resources will be much more apt to take action in light of the loss framed information we articulated at the event (Duval et al. 1999)
In question 5 of our survey we prompted the attendee to give an indication of how motivated they were to prepare after being apart of our event (see question 5, appendix F). In Figure 1, the histogram shows that all the attendees marked their motivation as lightly to very motivated to make earthquake preparations.
Figure 4: Responses to question 5 in exit survey (appendix F)
In question 6, we had a clear takeaway from the clinic in light of how people saw themselves after the event. In Figure 2, we see that all the attendees answered statement B (There are things I can do to lessen the impacts of this event and prepare for its aftermath) to the question. However one person did mark statement A (I feel overwhelmed by the prospect of this earthquake and don’t know what to do next) as well. In context to the PADM, this could be seen as the majority of participants possessing the efficacy to take protective action (Lindell & Perry, 2012). Their perception of the threat has elements of what they can do to begin danger-control processes (Witte 1992).
Figure 5: Responses to question 6 in exit survey (appendix F)
Going back to our original goals of informing, motivating and empowering LC students, staff and surrounding neighbors, the Open House and Clinic showed that we achieved our goals in bringing awareness into the minds of our attendees about the Cascadia Subduction Zone and what can be done about it. Though these events were small in context to the populations of the college and surrounding communities, the process and methods proved very effective and could be expanded to larger scales.