Abstract
The paper attempted to depict the locational information of disaster oriented medical facilities, emergency shelters and welfare establishments, corresponding to the numbers of people with special needs such as the elderly, infants, children, pregnant mothers, adults and/or children with physical disabilities, developmental disorders, mental disabilities and/or malignant illnesses in reference to the hazard map provided by the District Office of Totsuka, Yokohama City (as “Totsuka”) in order to identify impeding conditions to correct the situation for a better disaster preparedness. For this purpose, surveys were implemented by use of a structured questionnaire and interviews in Totsuka. The questionnaires were sent to the 38 facilities (20 valid replies, 52.6% response rate). Interviews were commenced at 5 out of the facilities replied. The interviews results revealed that drills for fires were fairly well implemented by them; however, lesser facilities covered general disaster drills such for earthquakes and extreme weather conditions. Additionally, the results implied that the preparedness of shelters for people with special needs (Fukushi Hinansho) was not adequate, and there was no systematic scheme to identify neighbors of the people with special needs nor a plan for their ingress safe routes to the shelters.
