An indigo seashell sends coral and amber rings across a turquoise bay toward a coastal community, a painted metaphor for warnings reaching the people who need them. The scene is illustrative, not a real warning installation.
Preparedness becomes more inclusive when communities ask what happens after an alert arrives, and give people a real say in the answer.
By Arbab Naseebullah Kasi, Chief Executive Officer - CEO, Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc.
Imagine a coastal community taking part in an announced emergency exercise. A warning reaches a phone. Its owner understands the message, knows the route and can leave promptly. In another household, the same message arrives, but the planned route includes steps that one resident cannot use.
This is a hypothetical example, but it poses a practical question: what exactly has succeeded when a warning has been delivered?
The technology has done an important job. The community still has work to do.
On 5 November, World Tsunami Awareness Day brings that work into focus. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction's 2026 concept note emphasises community drills, familiarity with evacuation routes and the involvement of organisations representing persons with disabilities, older people and migrants in shaping preparedness. It offers a useful starting point for thinking about whose knowledge belongs in an emergency plan. UNDRR's 2026 concept note.
For community leaders, employers and nonprofit organisations, there is a meaningful role here. We can help connect reliable information with the practical conditions people need to act on it. That requires listening, preparation and a willingness to discover where an apparently complete plan falls short.
Coverage deserves a closer question
There has been measurable progress. In its report launch on 12 November 2025, UNDRR and the World Meteorological Organization reported that 119 countries, representing 60 percent of countries, reported having a multi-hazard early warning system. That was a 113 percent increase over ten years. These are dated figures about countries reporting systems, not a count of individuals who can receive and act on every warning. UNDRR and WMO's 2025 findings.
That distinction matters whenever an organisation describes a population as covered.
A warning system can exist nationally while a particular household still faces a language barrier, an inaccessible message or an evacuation route that does not meet its needs. An organisation should therefore ask what its coverage claim means in practice. Does it refer to a signal reaching an area, a message being received, or a person being able to take the recommended action?
The 2025 report's accompanying overview places communities at the centre of system design and stresses that warnings must be received, understood, trusted and acted upon. It also identifies the need for multiple communication channels. Those are demanding tests because each requires attention to people's circumstances, alongside technical performance. UNDRR's report overview.
A useful local question is specific: who could still be excluded here, and how would we know?
Ask people what would make action possible
The value of time can be seen in UNDRR's 2023 Global Survey on Persons with Disabilities and Disasters, released on 12 October 2023. In the report, 39 percent of respondents expected no difficulty evacuating with sufficient early warning, while 26 percent reported no difficulty evacuating immediately and without assistance. These are reported expectations under different conditions, not results from an evacuation trial or proof of a causal effect. UNDRR's full survey report, pages 4 and 12.
The wider report recorded 6,342 responses from 132 countries. It also found that 86 percent of respondents reported no participation in community-level disaster risk reduction decisions and planning, while 57 percent said they would be willing to participate. The online survey was self-selected and was not globally representative. These percentages describe its respondents, not every person with a disability worldwide. UNDRR's 2023 survey findings.
Taken together, these findings give leaders a reason to invite people into the planning process earlier.
Instead of asking whether an existing plan looks acceptable, ask people to describe what would make it usable. Can they perceive the warning? Understand the instruction? Reach the designated location? Access any support they have agreed they need?
Make room for different answers. A person who uses a wheelchair and a person who is deaf may face different barriers, and neither should be expected to speak for everyone with a disability. A newcomer may understand the language of a message but be unfamiliar with the place named in it. A regular visitor may never have seen the information distributed to permanent residents.
Invite relevant local organisations and residents to help test these assumptions. Give them accessible ways to contribute. Where possible, budget for their time rather than treating lived experience as a resource available without cost.
Make the recommended action understandable
A warning can contain accurate information and still leave a reader uncertain about what to do next.
Consider another hypothetical exercise. A message names a hazard, lists several areas and directs people to a location known locally by an informal name. Long-term residents understand immediately. Someone who arrived last week does not.
The practical response is to test the message with people who have different levels of local knowledge. Ask them to explain, in their own words, what they believe it tells them to do. Notice where the wording, place names or presentation create uncertainty.
Community organisations should carry authoritative guidance faithfully and work with the relevant emergency authorities on local materials. Avoid improvising an evacuation instruction or distributing a translation that has not been checked by a competent person. A shortened message must preserve the information people need to act safely.
It is also important to distinguish the hazards being discussed. A safe response to one emergency may be inappropriate for another. A tsunami evacuation route, a shelter-in-place instruction and advice for extreme heat serve different purposes. Clear communication must keep the hazard and the recommended action connected.
A tsunami has an important warning exception
An article about warning systems must not imply that people should always wait for a message.
The United States National Weather Service advises that, in a tsunami hazard or evacuation zone or a low-lying coastal area, a strong or long earthquake, unusual ocean behaviour or a loud roar from the ocean can be a natural warning. Protect yourself during earthquake shaking. Once you can move safely, follow your emergency plan to a safe location outside the hazard zone, or follow evacuation signs toward safety, high ground or inland. Do not wait for an official tsunami warning. Remain outside the hazard zone until local officials say it is safe to return. National Weather Service tsunami guidance.
This is why local preparation matters before an emergency. Learn the official guidance for the place where you live, work or visit, including local hazard zones, routes and safe destinations. This article is not a substitute for that local plan.
Test the route as well as the message
The UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission's Tsunami Ready Recognition Programme treats preparedness as a set of connected capabilities. Its 12 indicators include hazard mapping, understandable evacuation maps, public information, an approved response plan and reliable, redundant means of receiving and disseminating official alerts around the clock. The programme also calls for a community exercise at least every two years. UNESCO-IOC's Tsunami Ready indicators.
The programme offers a useful example of looking beyond the alarm itself. Recognition is an established preparedness standard, not a promise that every future emergency will unfold as expected.
A local organisation can apply the same practical curiosity within its responsibilities. In an authorised, safely planned exercise, check what happens from the moment an instruction arrives until the person reaches the agreed destination. Work with emergency authorities and people with relevant access needs rather than designing an improvised drill alone.
Return to the hypothetical household with steps on its route. The useful discovery is the barrier itself. It allows planners to investigate an appropriate accessible route and any necessary support before an actual emergency. It should not become a criticism of the resident for being unable to follow the original plan.
A route on paper also needs to be checked against its real surroundings. A gate, a confusing junction or an entrance that is normally locked may deserve attention. The right response depends on local conditions and qualified advice. Recording a problem without assigning responsibility for resolving it leaves the work unfinished.
Offer support without taking away agency
There is a difference between preparing support with someone and deciding on their behalf what they will need.
Ask people how they prefer to communicate and whether they want assistance included in their plan. Agree who would provide that assistance, what it involves and how the arrangement will be reviewed. Do not promise that a volunteer or neighbour will always be available unless the arrangement can genuinely support that commitment.
Keep personal information proportionate to the task. An openly circulated list of health conditions or support needs can expose people unnecessarily. Organisations should use appropriate privacy safeguards, obtain the permissions they need and make clear who can access information and for what purpose.
The same care applies to public storytelling. An exercise does not create an obligation for participants to share personal experiences, appear in photographs or become examples in a fundraising campaign. People should be able to contribute to community safety without surrendering control over their own story.
Inclusion becomes more credible when participation brings influence over the plan and respect for the person.
Measure what the exercise teaches
Counting messages sent or leaflets distributed can help track activity. For a local learning exercise, add questions about what happened next.
Who received the test message, and through which channel? Which wording was unclear? Which agreed actions could participants complete? Where did a route or support arrangement fail? Who was missing from the exercise, and how will their perspective be sought?
These are suggested learning questions, not a validated scoring system. They should be adapted with the relevant authorities and participants. A small exercise also cannot establish that an entire community is prepared.
The strongest outcome may be an uncomfortable finding: a route that needs work, an assumption that was wrong, or a group whose input was absent. Treat that finding as a reason to improve the plan. Give each agreed correction an owner, a realistic completion point and a way to check that the change works.
Share an accessible summary with participants, including what has changed and what remains unresolved. People who give their time deserve to see whether their contribution influenced the result.
Preparedness is a shared responsibility
Asking households to prepare is reasonable. Expecting them to solve inaccessible infrastructure, unreliable communication or absent public support on their own is not.
Governments, emergency services, employers, community organisations and residents have different responsibilities and capacities. Good local planning makes those responsibilities clearer. It also exposes gaps that require resources or decisions beyond an individual household.
World Tsunami Awareness Day offers a useful moment to begin one manageable piece of that work. Find the official local guidance. Invite someone whose experience has been missing from the discussion. Examine one part of the journey from warning to action. Agree how a discovered barrier will be addressed.
An early warning creates an opportunity to act. The care put into routes, communication, support and participation helps determine who can use that opportunity.
That is a standard worth keeping in view long after the awareness day has passed.
