Flood and Wind Risk Perceptions in Evacuation Decisions: Lessons from Hurricane Ivan
摘要
This paper explores the differences in hazard-specific risk perceptions, namely flood risk perception (FRP) and wind risk perception (WRP), impacting individuals' evacuation decisions during hurricanes. We analyzed over eight hundred randomly selected household responses from areas affected by Hurricane Ivan in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. These survey responses were geocoded, allowing the integration of geospatial data into the household survey information. The geospatial variables, such as distance from the shoreline, evacuation routes, Hurricane Ivan's track, wind and rain exposure, and house elevation from mean sea level, were used as location-specific factors to gain a deeper understanding of FRP and WRP and their roles in explaining evacuation behavior. Using two sets of Bivariate Probit (BP) models, our empirical analyses indicated that risk perceptions influence evacuation decisions differently. Specifically, FRP showed a positive correlation with evacuation decisions, meaning that individuals were more likely to evacuate when they perceived floods as an imminent and severe threat. In contrast, WRP displayed a negative correlation, indicating that individuals were less likely to evacuate when they perceived wind risk during hurricanes.