Evacuation Decision-Making during Hurricane Matthew: An Assessment of the Effects of Social Connections

Abstract

This study conducted in Florida examines the relationship between an individual’s social connections and their decision to evacuate during a hurricane warning. Using Hurricane Matthew in 2016 as a case study, a survey was conducted on two groups (those who evacuated and those who did not), assessing one’s social connections considering three dimensions: dependability, density, and diversity. These factors, in addition to socioeconomic variables (e.g., age, race, education), were used to better define a picture for what influences evacuation decision-making. To avoid memory decay, the surveys were completed at the time of the evacuation for those who evacuated and immediately after the passage of Matthew for those who did not evacuate. It was concluded, through statistical analyses, that the perceived dependability of a person’s social connections (i.e., their perceived access to resources and support) played a significant role in the decision to evacuate or not, with non-evacuees having more dependable relationships and having a tightknit community they can rely on during a storm event. On the other hand, the density and diversity of peoples’ social connections did not significantly impact the decision to evacuate. This study has important implications for adding to the knowledge base on community-based sustainable disaster preparedness and resilience.

Social Ties, Mobility, and COVID-19 spread in Japan

“…Disaster scholars nd that strong social capital -social ties that residents use for physical, nancial, and social support in times of crisis -are powerful interventions that boost community resilience (Aldrich & Meyer 2015). Scholars found this after the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, the 1995 Heat Wave in Chicago, the 2011 disaster in Japan, and after Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, and Harvey in the US (Edgington 2010, Klinenberg 2002, Aldrich 2019, Ye and Aldrich 2019, Aldrich & Crook 2010, Collins et al 2017, Smiley et al 2018, Metaxa-Kakavouli et al 2018.…”

How Social Ties Influence Hurricane Evacuation Behavior

“…vulnerable areas [8]. While lacking qualitative dimensions, large-scale analysis of social media data can allow for a more nuanced picture of actual decision making and evacuation behavior during crises.…”

“…While scholars have suggested the possibility of using social media data to study disasters [4,31,37], we have done so at an unprecedented scale; rather than relying on user content production, we are able to use aggregated, de-identified data to study all Facebook users in the affected areas through the lens of their online social ties. Importantly, our work does not rely on retrospective surveys that ask survivors of crises to recall how they behaved during the event [20] nor on small samples of individuals in the process of evacuating [8]. While those studies have been standard practice as a way of collecting data on evacuation behaviors, and can provide nuanced insights by asking more open-ended questions of their participants, there are some inherent limitations of relying on the recall accuracy of respondents remembering events that happened in the past, which we are able to avoid.…”

Estimating road network accessibility during a hurricane evacuation: A case study of hurricane Irma in Florida

“…Such knowledge may assist emergency management officers and researchers in determining more appropriate parameters for their predictive models. Several studies have shown that factors such as warning messages from official emergency agencies (Sorensen, 2000;Dow & Cutter, 2000), perceptions of geophysical hazards (Meyer et al, 2018), and social behaviors (Dash & Gladwin, 2007;Collins et al, 2017; could influence residents' behavioral response curves. However, emergency management officials may choose not to promote a rapid response curve all the time so as to minimize the occurrence of false alarms (Dow & Cutter, 1998).…”