Location
American Samoa
Client
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The American Samoa Tsunami Study, undertaken to help strengthen American Samoa’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from coastal flooding and tsunami hazards, received the 2012 APA Hawai‘i Disaster Mitigation and Hazard Planning award and a Pacific Risk Management ‘Ohana Partnership Award. The study assessed American Samoa’s overall natural hazard resilience with regard to several facets:
- Land use and structural design policies and practices
- Critical infrastructure mapping and protection
- Warning and evacuation and emergency response capabilities
- Economic vulnerabilities to major disasters
- Hazard awareness education
- Governance in coordinating preparedness and recovery measures
Recommendations for improving risk awareness, policy, and protocol were developed through extensive research into the multiple resilience facets and a significant public outreach element helped capture the concerns of local officials and the knowledge and experience of subject matter experts. A local Tsunami Advisory Committee (TAC) helped channel input from the American Samoa Government and to facilitate a participatory bottom up/top down process. All findings and recommends made in this comprehensive assessment were examined with the TAC and aggregated into a final summary report to provide further comprehensive guidance and a prioritized implementation strategy.