Brommer and Senkbeil surveyed residents who evacuated during Hurricane Gustav in 2008 in order to understand whether meteorological variables influenced their evacuation behaviors. Among all three zip codes studied, storm surge was found to be the most influential variable, followed by size of storm, wind, rain, and lastly, tornadoes. The authors also analyzed the results by zip code, and found that storm surge and size were the most important factors for the New Orleans area, storm surge for the Houma area, and hurricane-force winds for the Lafayette area. The authors also used Mann-Whitney tests to assess the difference in influence of meteorological variables between regions. As expected, there was a statistical significant difference for storm surge between the New Orleans/Houma areas and the Lafayette area, and a statistically significant difference for wind between the Lafayette and New Orleans areas. Overall, the authors found that the residents were highly motivated to evacuate given their personal perceived risk related to the storm. An important contribution of this article is that it provides a perspective that is rarely taken: that of the relationship between meteorological variables and evacuation decisions.
