Not a good comparison with Pinatubo. Not only were their volcanologists crawling all over it until the last minute, but the US base commander (Col. Jeffrey R. Grime, commander of the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing at Clark Air Force Base) next door thoroughly had his stuff together and did everything right and in a timely manner.
A good indicator is taking video of a pyroclastic flow closing in on your location at high speed. This means you waited a tad too long.
But we never got footage of the big eruption due to a landfalling typhoon.