Evacuation During Hurricane Sandy: Data from a Rapid Community Assessment

Discussion Less than half of survey respondents evacuated for Sandy. We consider this to be low considering that residents in areas more vulnerable to Sandy were instructed to evacuate. Possible explanations for this low evacuation rate may be due to several factors. A number of disaster studies have assessed how individuals respond to disaster warnings, and in most cases the timing, personalization, and clarity of the message, and risk perception affected evacuation.7,9,10,15,17 It is possible that the degree of evacuation warning compliance in this study was a result of these underlying dimensions, which were beyond the scope of this study. The finding that individuals with extensive household damage were more likely to have evacuated than those with little to no damage is not entirely surprising. The evacuation rate previously reported for residents in evacuation zone A was only 31%.5 When taken into consideration with the high rate of evacuation among those with household damage, it is possible that respondents chose to evacuate because their homes became unlivable. Residents may not have fully grasped the necessity of evacuating prior to Sandy’s approach. Research suggests that recollections of past trauma may increase vulnerability to adverse outcomes during disasters.18 Thus, we assumed that those who had prior trauma would be more willing to evacuate for Sandy. However, in our study only witnessing a traumatic 9/11 event to others was associated with greater...
Source: PLOS Currents Disasters - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Source Type: research