Temporal vulnerability is motivated when the conditions for surprise increase. Early warning is an important way to reduce this type of vulnerability. Early warning encompasses the generation and effective use of advance information on impending risks and is an important way in which temporal vulnerability can be induced. The aim of people-centered early warning includes participatory approaches to both design and implementation. This video illustrates the importance of long-term residents in communicating and recognizing warning signs. In a small floodway neighborhood called Felton Grove in the town of Felton (Santa Cruz County California, U.S.A.) and located in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the geographic particularity of the landscape induces a flood which can come unpredictably fast. The video’s shows one of the few long-time residents who has taken leadership in coordinating early warning, serving as an neighborhood extension of the County early warning system. As the video and commetaries illustrate, temporal vulnerability is increased by high neighborhood turnover and newcomers lacking full appreciation of the meaning of early warning signs.
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The siren referred to in this video came in existence after a core group of concerned residents struggled for more then 15 years to realize their wish for a remotely operated siren. Their challenges including lack of funding, three bureaucracies impeding progress, and liability concerns from the County. A relatively fast flood event in the winter of 1998 lead to major failure of the early warning structure and reinvigorating the in 1989 locally expressed wish for a remotely accessed siren. Despite many hurdles, including a large residential turnover reducing the ability of residents to understand the need for the siren, a lack of County support as a result of liability and restrictions posed on FEMA funding, and bureaucratic hurdles, the residents prevailed. Will residents heed the warnings?
One of the technically inclined neighborhood volunteers managing the siren’s technology has set up a website on the siren here: http://www.floodsiren.org/
