When do households evacuate? Hurricane evacuation timing during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

In coastal areas, the primary protective action against hurricanes is evacuation. Decisions to evacuate, however, are often made with incomplete information about storm impact zones or timing. Previous studies have provided rich findings on what leads households evacuate, but when households evacuate has not been sufficiently addressed in the literature. This is of particular concern when household evacuation decisions are complicated by additional risk factors, such as concerns regarding COVID-19. Here, we surveyed households in two counties in Texas and two parishes in Louisiana that were affected by Hurricane Laura to examine how hurricane risk perceptions, hurricane experience, perceived storm characteristics, hurricane watches/warnings, evacuation logistic factors (i.e. evacuation time, costs, and destinations), COVID-19 factors, and socio-demographic factors affect households’ evacuation departure timing. Our findings suggest having family members that have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past or having family members considered at high risk for COVID-19 complications leads households to be less likely to evacuate early. We also found variances in early evacuation across surveyed locations. Our findings could be used by local governments and emergency managers to understand factors that influence early hurricane evacuation, particularly in environments dealing with infectious diseases and other concurrent hazards.

KEYWORDS:

• Hurricane evacuation
• COVID-19
• departure timing
• households
• Hurricane Laura

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The survey approval has been obtained from the institutional review board at the University of North Texas (study number: IRB-20-509).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science Foundation Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment Program [grant number 2051578].