Read Why Evacuating During Disasters Like Hurricane Milton Isn’t Easy (Videos)

As Hurricane Milton made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, tens of thousands of people were in emergency shelters. Hundreds of thousands more had fled coastal regions ahead of the storm, crowding highways north and south as their counties issued evacuation orders.

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

As Milton’s torrential rain and storm flooded neighborhoods late on October 9, 2024, 911 emergency calls came in. In Tampa’s Hillsborough County, more than 500 people had to be rescued, including residents of an assisted living community and families trapped in a flooded home after a tree fell through the roof at the height of the storm.

In Plant City, 20 miles inland from Tampa, at least 35 people had been rescued by dawn, said City Manager Bill McDaniel. Although the storm was not as extreme as feared, McDaniel said his city was flooded in places and to a degree he had never seen before. Traffic signals were out. Power lines and trees had fallen. The sewage treatment plant was flooded and affected the public water supply.

Evacuation may seem like the obvious action when a major hurricane is approaching your area, but this decision is not always as easy as it seems.

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

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

Evacuation can be expensive

Evacuation requires transportation, money, shelter, the ability to take days off work before a storm, and other resources that many people do not have.

With one in nine Americans now experiencing poverty, many have limited options for evacuation. For example, during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, many residents did not have their own vehicles and were unable to reach evacuation buses. That left them exposed to a deadly hurricane. Almost 1,400 people died in the storm, many of them in flooded houses.

When millions of people have to be evacuated, logistical problems also arise.

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

People who have witnessed previous evacuations or seen news videos about clogged highways before Hurricane Milton may not leave because they fear getting stuck.

Health, pets and physically able to walk

For people with disabilities or in nursing homes, the logistics of an evacuation are even more challenging. Additionally, detained individuals may have no choice in the matter – and the justice system may have few options for moving them.

Evacuating nursing homes, people with disabilities or prison inmates is complex. Many accommodations are not designed to meet their needs. In one example, during Hurricane Floyd, a disabled person arrived at a shelter, but the hallways were too narrow for her wheelchair, so she had to rely on a crib for the duration of her stay. Moving people whose health is poor, under stressful conditions, can also exacerbate health problems and present nursing home staff with difficult decisions.

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

In a study of 291 long-term care facilities in Florida, 81% of residents noted that they sheltered residents on-site during the 2004 hurricane season because they had limited transportation options and had difficulty finding places to take residents .

People with pets face another difficult decision: Some prefer to stay at home for fear of leaving their pet behind. Studies have found that pet owners are significantly less likely to evacuate than others because they have difficulty transporting their pets and finding shelters that can accommodate them. During devastating storms, it can take days to weeks before people can return home.

Risk perception can also get in the way

People’s perceptions of risk can also deter them from leaving the country.

A number of studies show that women and minorities take hurricane risk more seriously than other groups and are more likely to leave their country or seek shelter. One study found that women are almost twice as likely as men to evacuate when given a mandatory evacuation order.

If people have experienced a hurricane that did not cause significant damage, they may perceive the risks of an upcoming storm as lower and not move away.

In my analysis of the research, I found that many people who were not evacuated had reservations about going to shelters and preferred to stay at home or with family or friends. Conditions in the accommodation were sometimes poor, overcrowded or lacked privacy.

People were afraid of safety and whether shelters could meet their needs. For example, religious minorities were unsure whether shelters would be clean and safe, have private spaces for religious practice, and whether there would be dining options consistent with faith practices. Diabetics and people with small children also had concerns about finding suitable food in emergency 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 that can withstand hurricane-force winds can create safe havens for people who lack transportation or cannot leave their workplace in time to evacuate.
• Providing more accommodation and transportation options for people with disabilities and those with special needs, such as: B. nursing home residents, can help protect vulnerable populations
• Opening animal shelters to place pets with their owners may also increase the likelihood that pet owners will be evacuated.
• Public education can be improved so that people know their options. Clearer risk communication about how these storms differ from previous ones and what people are likely to experience can also 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, diverse populations and can ensure that populations have options to evacuate to safety.

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This article has been updated with additional details about the damage from Hurricane Milton.

Carson MacPherson-Krutsky, research associate, Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.