RAPID: An interdisciplinary study of winds, surge, damage, risk analysis and psychosocial response before and after Hurricane Irma

飓风是影响美国的最具破坏性的自然灾害之一，其中最严重的飓风（如1900年的加尔维斯顿飓风、1992年的安德鲁飓风、2005年的卡特里娜飓风）在美国造成的死亡人数和保险美元损失是所有自然灾害中最高的。考虑到估计830亿美元的经济损失，飓风“厄玛”很可能会加入这个名单。飓风威胁到整个社区的可持续性：恢复往往缓慢或不完整，居民可能永久流离失所，物质破坏可能造成长期的经济困难。对社区的结构性破坏以及飓风登陆之前、期间和之后个人和社区一级的选择，可能会影响到人员损失，包括精神和身体健康后果。然而，飓风的许多有害后果可以通过更有效和更有针对性的疏散工作、改进决策和建筑规范/实践来减轻。先前的研究表明，人类对飓风的反应受到风暴暴露、人口统计、先前疏散行为以及灾难信息的类型和感知可信度的变化的影响。此外，对风险的实时感知可能与实际的风和风暴潮条件、对基础设施的持续破坏以及这些事件的传播方式有关。该项目的研究人员一直处于开发和维护佛罗里达州居民样本（事先得到美国国家科学基金会的支持）的前沿，包括飓风前和飓风后的精神、身体、心理和行为反应。本项目考察了风暴和媒体暴露的物理指标如何相互作用并影响这些反应。为了促进未来在易受飓风和其他灾害影响的地区开展减灾工作，全面了解这些破坏性风暴的物理性质以及人类对这些风暴的反应至关重要。在这个项目中，一个跨学科的调查小组利用了最近由美国国家科学基金会快速资助的一项调查，该调查是在飓风“厄玛”在佛罗里达州登陆前3天以及风暴过去几周内对佛罗里达州居民的代表性样本进行的。该团队研究了风暴的物理参数（风、浪涌、破坏）和媒体传播在理解对飓风的心理和行为反应方面所起的作用。调查人员在飓风“厄玛”登陆前后的几天里，在样本所在的地方收集了相关的带有时间戳的物理和媒体数据。研究人员探讨了三个问题：1)空间和时间变化的风和风暴潮对受这些物理输入影响的人们不断变化的感知和决策的影响是什么？2)与受访者的个人经历、对先前风险的暴露、对不断发展的媒体传播的暴露和其他非气象、非损害因素的暴露相比，这些物理输入在风暴前风险感知、决策和痛苦水平方面的个体差异占多大比例？3)与飓风的物理参数相比，飓风后反应的可变性在多大程度上是疏散决策、暴露于不断发展的媒体传播或其他社会心理变量的函数？结果将为灾害准备、动员和恢复的资源分配决策提供信息，并为应急管理人员和其他官员提供如何改进对未来恶劣天气事件的反应的见解。物理参数、媒体和人类反应数据的整合提高了面临风险社区的可持续性，同时也为与其他自然灾害相关的理论和政策提供了信息。

Hurricanes rank among the most damaging natural hazards affecting the United States, the worst of which (e.g. Galveston 1900, Andrew 1992, Katrina 2005) caused some of the highest U.S. death tolls and insured dollar losses of any natural disaster. Given estimates of $83 billion in economic losses, Hurricane Irma will likely join this list. Hurricanes threaten the sustainability of entire communities: recovery is often slow or incomplete, residents may be permanently displaced, and physical destruction may cause long-term economic hardship. Human losses, including mental and physical health outcomes, may be affected by structural damage to the community and by individual- and community-level choices made before, during and after the hurricane reaches land. Yet many deleterious consequences of hurricanes may be mitigated through more effective and appropriately targeted evacuation efforts, improved decision making, and building codes/practices. Prior research suggests that human responses to hurricanes are influenced by variability in storm exposure, demographics, prior evacuation behavior, and type and perceived trustworthiness of disaster messaging. Moreover, real-time perceptions of risk may be related to actual wind and storm surge conditions and ongoing evolving damage to infrastructure, as well as to how these events are communicated. The investigators in this project have been at the forefront of developing and maintaining a sample (with prior NSF support) of Florida residents, including both pre- and post-Irma mental, physical, psychological and behavioral responses. This project examines how physical indicators of the storm and media exposure interact and influence those responses. To facilitate future mitigation efforts in places vulnerable to hurricanes and other hazards, gaining an integrated understanding of the physical nature of, and human responses to, these devastating storms is critical.In this project, an interdisciplinary team of investigators leverages a recent NSF RAPID-funded survey of a representative sample of Florida residents in the 3 days before Hurricane Irma made landfall across the State of Florida and again a few weeks after the storm passed. The team examines the role played by the physical parameters of the storm (wind, surge, damage) and media communications in understanding psychological and behavioral responses to the hurricane. The investigators collect relevant time-stamped physical and media data in places where the sample resided in the days leading up to and after Hurricane Irma made landfall. The researchers explore three questions: 1) What are the effects of spatially- and temporally-varying winds and surge that result in varying and evolving damage on the evolving perception and decisions made by people affected by these physical inputs? 2) What proportion of individual variability in pre-storm risk perceptions, decisions, and distress levels are accounted for by these physical inputs compared to respondents' personal histories, exposure to previous risks, exposure to evolving media communications, and other non-meteorological, non-damage factors? and, 3) To what extent is variability in the post-hurricane response a function of the decision to evacuate, exposure to evolving media communications, or other psychosocial variables, as compared to physical parameters of the storm? Results will inform decision making about the allocation of resources for disaster preparation, mobilization, and recovery, as well as provide emergency managers and other officials with insight into how to improve responses to future severe weather events. The integration of physical parameters, media, and human response data leads to increased sustainability of at-risk communities, while also informing theories and policies relevant to other natural disasters.