SGER: Perceived Risk and Compliance with a Mandatory Evacuation Order

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Dr. Susan Weller (University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston) and Dr. Roberta Baer (University of South Florida) will explore Galveston residents' perceptions of hurricane risk. This study focuses on risk perceptions among people who did and did not comply with a mandatory hurricane evacuation order, as well as the civil defense authorities who issued the order. On September 11, 2008, a mandatory evacuation order was issued for Galveston Island as Hurricane Ike approached. But when the storm hit, approximately 40 percent of the population had not evacuated. The storm produced a surge of approximately 13 feet, and inundated much of the island. The study uses qualitative methods (in-depth open-ended ethnographic interviews) to elicit reasons, motives, and beliefs about what a "mandatory" evacuation means, why people did or did not comply, what they might do next time and why, and what they would like others to know when given a mandatory order in the future. The study's hypothesis is that there may be differences in understanding of risk between those who did and did not evacuate and also between those who give evacuation orders and those who do and do not respond to such orders. The ultimate goal is to understand whether there are important differences in the understanding of risk between those who issue mandatory evacuation orders and the public who is expected to respond to them. While Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard areas carry summer time risk of a natural disaster due to a hurricane, the entire United States carries some degree of risk due to a possible terrorist, specifically a bioterrorist attack. Population response (and non-response) to mandatory evacuation rules raises a question about population compliance with any mandatory order based on estimations of risk.