Personal decisions to evacuate in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
Citation: Huang S-K. Households’ evacuation decision in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Texas A&M University. 2014.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: Yes.
Funding sources: Government of Taiwan, National Science Foundation (USA).
What is this? In this dissertation and meta-analysis, the author searched for psychological and sociological abstracts that studied decisions by households to evacuate in response to a hurricane. He searched for studies published in English between 1991 and 2012, and found 30 articles. 270 households from two parishes in Louisiana provided data for Hurricane Katrina. 1,007 households in seven Texas counties provided findings for Hurricane Rita.
What was found: Home ownership, official warnings, location in a hurricane risk area, seeing peers evacuate, expected storm surge, flood, or high wind, and danger of injury strongly and consistently influenced the decision to evacuate. The presence of children in the home, female sex, black ethnicity, reliance on news media or peers for storm information, and hurricane intensity had weaker effects, possibly mediated by other variables.
Implications: The author of the review stated that a person’s decision to evacuate was determined by the anticipated effect of the storm, household characteristics, reception of National Weather Service information, social context, and environmental cues.
Other considerations: The author discussed his findings in the context of place of residence, race, age, sex, education, socio-economic status, and social capital.
This summary was prepared by Beirut Ibrahim, checked by Jawaria Karim, and finalized by William Summerskill.