SGER: Primary Meteorological Variables Influencing Hurricane Evacuation Decisions: A Case Study of Hurricane Gustav

该SGER项目的主要重点是确定人们是否在应对飓风的气象变量（如预测的风力和风暴潮）时进行疏散。pi将确定哪些气象变量促使居民撤离，以及用于评估这些因素的来源。结果将使人们更好地了解居民的优先事项，这将使预报员、应急管理人员和政府官员能够通过关注人们感兴趣的变量，在飓风来临之前更好地与居民沟通。第二个目标是分析疏散区域内威胁感知的空间变化。重要的是要确定人们是在预计飓风右眼会立即受到最严重的破坏而撤离，还是因为整个地区都可能受到飓风的威胁而撤离。之前的研究已经解决了这些问题，但它们大多是在风暴过后或假设的情况下进行的。2008年，飓风古斯塔夫有可能成为一场强大的飓风，并影响到路易斯安那州和密西西比州人口稠密的海岸线。预计古斯塔夫将促使墨西哥湾沿岸地区进行大规模疏散，因此在疏散过程中提供了一个理想而狭窄的窗口来调查撤离人员。考虑到飓风丽塔令人沮丧的撤离，人们担心，许多居民可能不会像未来那样迅速撤离，以应对类似强度的风暴。由于研究人员可以根据他们所在地区的预期威胁预测居民将在哪里撤离（或不撤离），因此提高对疏散的了解最终将有助于规划疏散。在这个项目中收集的这些数据不能被认为是在风暴影响了该地区并影响了受试者的观点和优先级之后收集的数据。在风暴后的评估中，关于撤离的确切原因的重要信息很可能会丢失。此外，个人可能不清楚地记得影响他们撤离决定的气象变量。这些数据可以帮助我们更好地理解是什么驱动了个人撤离的决定。一项自愿的风暴后调查将用于确定撤离者的观念和动机是否在风暴后发生变化。这将有助于将这些结果与其他风暴后研究的结果联系起来。除科学出版物外，研究结果还将分发给应急管理人员和政府官员。

The primary focus of this SGER project is to determine if people are evacuating in response to the meteorological variables of a hurricane, such as forecasted winds and storm surge. The PIs will ascertain which meteorological variable(s) motivate residents to evacuate and the sources used to assess those factors. Results will yield a better understanding of residents' priorities, and this will allow forecasters, emergency managers, and government officials to better communicate with the residents in advance of hurricanes by focusing on variables of interest to the people. A secondary objective is to analyze the spatial variation of threat perceptions across the evacuation region. It is important to determine if people are evacuating in anticipation of the worst damage swath immediately to the right of the eye, or if they are evacuating due to a perceived threat of hurricane force conditions across the entire region. Prior research has addressed these questions, but they were mostly conducted well after the storm or with respect to hypothetical situations. In 2008, Hurricane Gustav had the potential to be a powerful hurricane and to influence a highly-populated and recently impacted coastline in Louisiana and Mississippi. Gustav was anticipated to prompt a mass evacuation of the Gulf Coast region, thus providing an ideal and narrow window to survey evacuees during the evacuation process. Given the frustrating evacuation of Hurricane Rita, it is a concern that many residents may not evacuate as readily for future storms of comparable intensity. Improved understanding will ultimately aid in the planning of evacuations as researchers can predict where residents will evacuate (or not) according to the expected threat(s) in their area.These data to be collected during this project cannot be considered the same as data collected after the storm has impacted the area and affected the subjects' perspectives and priorities. It is likely that vital information will be lost regarding the exact reason(s) for evacuation during a post-storm assessment. Furthermore, individuals may not clearly remember the meteorological variables that influenced their decision to evacuate. These data may provide a better understanding as to what drives personal evacuation decisions. A voluntary post-storm survey will be used to determine whether evacuees' perceptions and motivations change after the storm. This will help relate these results to those of other post-storm studies. In addition to scientific publications, results will also be disseminated to emergency managers and government officials.