This exploratory study investigates the evacuation process of elderly facilities during the Great West Japan Flood. Based on the actual lifting up conditions and the measurement data, we scrutinized the evacuation time and configured its scenario to explain the vertical evacuation. The results highlight the following points:
(1) About evacuation responses of the three elderly facilities:
・ Flood experience and horizontal evacuation drills have played a key role in responding to evacuation. However, with the absence of the agreement on the evacuation starting time among the three elderly facilities, there were differences in the criteria for determining evacuation at the affiliated facilities.
・ In the horizontal evacuation, Facility A took more than two hours to prepare for evacuation (including a support request), and Facility B took one hour to transport luggage. The residents' travel time by the vehicle (TH ) is "50 minutes" for Facility A and "70 minutes" for Facility B.
・ Despite frequent unexpected events such as nighttime, explosion, evacuees from outside, etc., self-help, mutual assistance, and public assistance were well balanced. However, the efforts such as emergency food stockpiles need to be further promoted.
・ Horizontal evacuation by using vehicles was useful for a large number of elderly people at the facilities in case the support system was set up early.
・ Vertical evacuation by lifting vulnerable people upstairs took a lot of time when the elevator in Facility C stopped accidentally. Evacuation time (TV ) is "about 80 minutes" from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor and "52 minutes" from the 2nd floor to the 3rd floor.
(2) About the vertical evacuation process at Facility C:
・ Based on the results for the time spent on vertical evacuation, the evacuation time per resident on each floor (T1 ) is "2 minutes 56.6 seconds to 4 minutes 16.6 seconds" in the case of being carried on a wheelchair by four supporters, "1 minute 7.6 seconds to 2 minute 27.6 seconds" in the case of being carried on one supporter’s back, and "1 minute to 2 minutes " in the case of walking with a supporter.
・ In the case of being carried by a wheelchair and being carried on the back were cyclic lifting up process, and by comparing the capacity between two means, the evacuation time(TV ) is determined by the total time in the case of being carried by a wheelchair.
・ The wheelchair residents were not carried separately with the wheelchair during the vertical evacuation, even though the capacity of being carried on the back is four times that of being carried by a wheelchair.
