How longtime residents use visual media cues to determine evacuation actions before hurricanes

Abstract

This study sought to measure risk perception and behavioral intention in rural and urban communities in Mississippi and Alabama when severe weather strikes. We developed an experiment testing how visual cues and media messages surrounding an impending hurricane could influence an individual's decision-making in the situation. Respondents were selected from six counties on Mississippi and Alabama coastlines and placed into one of three conditions, each of which described a hypothetical “Hurricane Farrah,” which was near landfall nearby. Data were collected on 466 respondents and analysis determined that the live video was least likely to motivate respondents to take evacuation measures.

Notes

1 Mobile County (2016 population: 413,000) and Baldwin County (2016 population: 212,000) in Alabama; Escambia County, Florida (2016 population: 313,000); and three counties in Mississippi, including Hancock County (2016 population: 47,000), Harrison County (2016 population: 205,000) and Jackson County (2016 population: 142,000).

2 In terms of racial demography of the Gulf Coast region, the sample has oversampled those who identify as white and undersampled those identify as Black or of Hispanic ethnicity: https://www.lsuagcenter.com/NR/rdonlyres/D1F1E4FD-FA49-4F73-8D67-2AAAC73099F6/94997/RR121racialandethnicgroupsinthegulfofmexicoregiona.pdf

3 This project was funded through a grant from the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium and focused on the coastal areas within its region.

4 Our study focused on individual behavioral intention, so we examined evacuation and preparatory activities as one index of variables, which is different from Morss et al. (2016). Thus, any preparatory behavior, whether it be to leave the area, or prepare one’s residence for severe weather is considered a preparatory activity.

Additional information

Funding

This manuscript was supported by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under NOAA Award NA14OAR4170098, the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium and the University of Alabama. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of any of those organizations.