3 Big Reasons People Defy Hurricane Evacuation Orders

But not everyone left, despite dire warnings about a hurricane that had been one of the strongest on record two days earlier.

As rain and storms in Milton flooded neighborhoods late on October 9, 2024, the 911 calls came. More than 500 people were rescued in Hillsborough County from Tampa. Tampa police rescued more than a dozen adults and children from a flooded home after a tree fell through the roof during the storm.

In Plant City, 20 miles inland from Tampa, at least 35 people had been rescued by dawn, City Manager Bill McDaniel said. Although the storm was not as extreme as feared, he said his city flooded in places and to levels he had never seen before. There were no road signs. Power lines and trees were down. The sewage plant was flooded, affecting the public water supply.

Evacuating might seem like the obvious move when a major hurricane is bearing down on your region, but that choice isn’t always as easy as it seems.

Evacuating from a hurricane requires money, planning, the ability to leave, and most importantly, the belief that evacuating is better than staying put.

We recently reviewed years of research on what motivates people to flee or seek shelter during hurricanes as part of a project with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Natural Hazards Center. I found three main reasons why people didn’t leave.

1. Evacuation can be expensive

Evacuating requires a car, gas money, a place to stay, the ability to take days off work ahead of a storm, and other resources that many people don’t have.

With 1 in 9 Americans facing poverty today, many have limited options for escape. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, many residents did not own vehicles and could not reach evacuation buses. That left them stranded in front of a deadly hurricane. Nearly 1,400 people died in the storm, many of them in flooded homes.

When millions of people are under evacuation orders, logistical problems also arise.

Gas shortages and traffic jams can leave people stranded on highways and unable to find shelter before the storm hits. This happened during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, when 2 million Floridians tried to evacuate.

People who have experienced previous evacuations or seen news videos of busy freeways before Hurricane Milton may not leave for fear of being stranded.

2. Health, pets and physical ability to leave

The logistics of evacuation are even more difficult for people with disabilities or in nursing homes. Furthermore, people who are incarcerated may not have a choice in the matter – and the justice system may have few options to move them.

Evacuating nursing homes, people with disabilities or the prison population is complex. Many shelters are not set up to meet their needs. In one example, during Hurricane Floyd, a disabled person arrived at a shelter, but the hallways were too narrow for their wheelchair, so they were restricted to a crib for the duration of their stay. Moving people whose health is fragile and doing so under stressful conditions can also exacerbate health problems, leaving asylum staff to make difficult decisions.

But failure to evacuate can also be deadly. During Hurricane Irma in 2017, seven residents of a nursing home died in the sweltering heat after their facility lost power near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In some cases, public water systems are shut down or become contaminated. And flooding can create several health hazards, including the risk of infectious diseases.

In a study of 291 long-term care facilities in Florida, 81% sheltered their residents during the 2004 hurricane season because they had limited transportation options and faced problems finding places to go the residents.

People with pets face another difficult choice – some choose to stay home for fear of leaving their pet behind. Studies have found that pet owners are much less likely to evacuate than others because of the difficulties of transporting pets and finding shelters to take them. In destructive storms, it can be days to weeks before people can return home.

3. Risk perception can also get in the way

People’s perceptions of risk may also prevent them from leaving.

A number of studies show that women and minorities take hurricane risks more seriously than other groups and are more likely to evacuate or go to shelters. One study found that women are almost twice as likely as men to evacuate when given a mandatory eviction order.

If people have experienced a hurricane before that did not do significant damage, they may perceive the risks of an upcoming storm to be lower and not go away.

In my review of the research, I found that many people who did not evacuate had reservations about going to shelters and preferred to stay at home or with family or friends. Shelter conditions were sometimes poor, overcrowded or lacking in privacy.

People had fears about safety and whether shelter environments could meet their needs. For example, religious minorities were unsure whether shelters would be clean, safe, have private places for religious practice, and food options consistent with faith practices. Diabetics and people with young children also had concerns about finding adequate food in shelters.

How to improve evacuations for the future

There are ways leaders can reduce barriers to evacuation and shelter use. For example:

• Building more shelters capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds can create safe shelters for people without transportation or who cannot leave their jobs in time to evacuate.
• Providing more shelters and transportation capable of accommodating people with disabilities and those with special needs, such as nursing home residents, can help protect vulnerable populations.
• Opening shelters to house pets with their owners can also increase the likelihood that pet owners will evacuate.
• Public education can be improved so that people know their options. Clearer risk communication about how these storms differ from past storms and what people are likely to experience can help people make informed decisions.
• Being prepared saves lives. Many areas would benefit from better advance planning that takes into account the needs of large and diverse populations and can ensure that populations have ways to safely evacuate.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/evacuating-in-disasters-like-hurricane-milton-isnt-simple-there-are-reasons-people-stay-in-harms-way-and-its-nu -just-stubbornness-240869.