Climate change has brought more extreme weather events to Hong Kong. The increasing number of powerful tropical cyclones that hammered Hong Kong in recent years reminded the territory to review typhoon preparedness of the community.

Typhoon Mangkhut slammed Hong Kong in September 2018 and caused significant devastation. Three weeks after the devastation, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Preparedness and Response Institute commissioned the Public Opinion Programme at The University of Hong Kong to conduct a survey to understand the general Hong Kong public’s typhoon preparedness measures and their information seeking behaviors.

A cross-sectional population-based anonymous telephone survey was conducted on a random sample of 1,018 Cantonese-speaking adults aged 18 or above.

The most common typhoon preparedness measures were taping windows (45%), followed by food stockpiling (18%), and closing of doors/windows (10%). Only 2% and 1% of the respondents were prepared for water and power outage, respectively. 36% of the respondents did not take any precautionary measures. 29% sought typhoon precautionary measures information from the mass media and 31% of respondents relied on their previous experience. Other sources of information included government sources (7%) and social media (7%).

Though no death cases were reported related to Typhoon Mangkhut, the effect of the superstorm caused over 300 casualties, blocked roads, and transportation chaos caused by fallen trees and other debris, power and water outage, serious floods, and severely damaged public and private facilities. Around 40,000 households experienced a power outage and some residential estates were left without water. The survey revealed the lack of precautionary measures of the Hong Kong public for power and water outage. More education on typhoon preparedness, especially on power and water outage and more community-level support on localized disaster preparedness advice, would likely improve disaster preparedness for the Hong Kong public.