The Boy Who Cried, "Wolf!" or Why a Community-based Alert System is a good idea.

Publication language
English
Pages
8pp
Date published
01 Jun 2007
Type
Research, reports and studies
Keywords
Capacity development, Community-led, Disaster preparedness, resilience and risk reduction, Early warning, Disasters, Tsunamis, Urban
Countries
Sri Lanka
Organisations
Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)

 A community initiative to provide early warnings to a single disaster, such as a tsunami disaster, can grow into a bridge that connects the national disaster management to the coastal city that is at risk. This case study uses the fable of the boy who cried wolf to describe the components of an alerting system by analyzing the hazard, the community, and the communication mechanism. Finally, case describes one such initiative, the Community Tsunami Early-warning Centre of Peraliya, Sri Lanka.