Predictors of hurricane evacuation decisions: A meta-analysis

We systematically review and meta-analyze quantitative prediction models for hurricane evacuation decisions. Drawing on data from 33 prediction models and 29,873 households, we estimate distributions of effects on evacuation decisions for 25 predictors. Mobile home occupancy, evacuation orders, and having an evacuation plan showed the largest positive effects on evacuation, whereas increased age and Black race showed the largest negative effects. These results highlight the importance of both social-economic-structural factors and government action, such as evacuation orders, for enabling evacuation behaviors. Moderator analyses showed that models built using real-hurricane decisions showed larger effects than models of hypothetical decisions, especially for the strongest predictors. Additionally, models in Florida had more consistent results than for other U.S. states, and models with a larger number of covariates showed smaller effect sizes than models with fewer covariates. Importantly, our study improves methodologically and inferentially over previous reviews of this literature.

Modeling and transportation planning for US noncombatant evacuation operations in South Korea

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate US noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO) in South Korea and devise planning and management procedures that improve the efficiency of those missions. Design/methodology/approach: It formulates a time-staged network model of the South Korean noncombatant evacuation system as a mixed integer linear program to determine an optimal flow configuration that minimizes the time required to complete an evacuation. This solution considers the capacity and resource constraints of multiple transportation modes and effectively allocates the limited assets across a time-staged network to create a feasible evacuation plan. That solution is post-processed and a vehicle routing procedure then produces a high resolution schedule for each individual asset throughout the entire duration of the NEO. Findings: This work makes a clear improvement in the decision-making and resource allocation methodology currently used in a NEO on the Korea peninsula. It immediately provides previously unidentifiable information regarding the scope and requirements of a particular evacuation scenario and then produces an executable schedule for assets to facilitate mission accomplishment. Originality/value: The significance of this work is not relegated only to evacuation operations on the Korean peninsula; there are numerous other NEO and natural disaster related scenarios that can benefit from this approach.

Mapping of IOC-UNESCO Tsunami Ready Indicators in the Pangandaran Village, Indonesia

Pangandaran Village is a tourist village located in Pangandaran Regency, West Java Province, Indonesia. The beautiful view of sand beaches and abundant marine resources make Pangandaran Village has great economic potential. However, in 2006, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 Mw triggered a tsunami disaster in the Pangandaran area that caused more than 600 fatalities, injuries, and damage to buildings, especially in Pangandaran Village. Based on current research, there is potential for an 8.7 magnitude earthquake off the south coast of Java in the near future, triggering an enormous tsunami. The coastal community in Pangandaran Regency has been building a tsunami risk reduction strategy to anticipate the tsunami disaster. In Pangandaran Village, the local community is piloting the 12 tsunami ready indicators following the guideline from UNESCO-IOC. Therefore, this study aims to map 12 tsunami ready IOC-UNESCO indicators in Pangandaran Village to evaluate which indicators the government and community of Pangandaran Village. The method used in mapping 12 tsunami ready indicators in Pangandaran Village is to take data in the field by doing aerial photographs, conducting interviews with the village government and other related local stakeholders, mapping tsunami evacuation plan and infrastructure, and disseminating questionnaires to the community to find out the response to the tsunami disaster. Based on the IOC-UNESCO tsunami indicator mapping results, all indicators have been fulfilled. However, several other aspects of tsunami preparedness indicators still need to be improved to strengthen tsunami preparedness in Pangandaran.

Allocation of Relief Centre for Flood Victims Using Location Set Covering Problem (LSCP)

The frequency of natural disaster has been increasing over the years, resulting in loss of life, damage to properties and destruction of the environment. Compared to other natural disaster, floods are the most significant natural hazard in Malaysia that affect thousands of people. It becomes of great concern especially, during these recent floods, several relief centers were experiencing problems when most of the flood’s victims needed to move to the other relief centers after the existing shelters were also affected by flood water. Furthermore, the relief centers were congested due to the large number of flood evacuees that were over the capacity provided. This study attempts to adapt an advance mathematical location-allocation models in making decision to locate and allocate flood victims during flood event. The Location Set Covering Problem (LSCP), with capacitated constraint is considered and solved using Excel Solver. The determination of safe locations for relief centres with respect to prone area is proposed by adding three new constraints which are the distance from river, elevation from sea level and rainfall amount. A flood case of Kuala Kuantan, Pahang in 2013 was used as the main study area for the analysis as well as the whole Kuantan district. Two scenarios of split and non-split allowed were tested for allocation process and result showed that the percentage allocation and number of relief centers involved increases when the distance increases accordingly. Hence, the model can be considered for better evacuation plan.

Characteristics of Potential Tsunami Evacuee and Evacuation Infrastucture in Pangandaran Beach, Indonesia

Pangandaran Regency is a strategic area that supports various economic and social activities. However, the existence of this strategic area is threatened by the potential of tsunami disaster, especially from the megathrust along the South Coast of Java Island. One of the efforts to enhance tsunami preparedness is to conduct evacuation plan and drill. Based on previous tsunami occurrence, it is known that success of evacuation during disaster is still limited by lack of community knowledge, preparedness, and limited infrastructure such as informative evacuation route maps, evacuation signs and proper evacuation sites. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify people's behavior in carrying out evacuations and actual condition of the current evacuation infrastructure which is later be used to obtain comprehensive information as the basis for evacuation plans preparation. This study aims to disseminate questionnaires to 174 respondents in Pangandaran Tourism Area and map tsunami evacuation infrastructure. This study shows a high awareness of tsunami hazards, in which 82% of respondents choose to evacuate after experiencing an earthquake or getting an early tsunami warning. In addition to the result, some respondents still do not know the route or evacuation site. Uninformed shelter destination and route choice result in potential congestion on the main roads, which slows evacuation by compromising survival rates. Three Pangandaran official TES can accommodate approximately 11,900 people, while the capacity of alternative TES if utilized 100% can accommodate 21,291 people. This indicates that the official TES and the new Alternative TEST can accommodate the villagers and some of tourists if the number of tourists reaches the maximum. Therefore, the existing building can be utilized as Temporary Evacuation Sites. Furthermore, there is a call to evacuation signs maintenance, in which some signs are currently in inappropriate condition such as damaged or show misleading information.

Disaster Preparedness Among Women With a Recent Live Birth in Hawaii – Results From the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), 2016

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine emergency preparedness behaviors among women with a recent live birth in Hawaii. Methods: Using the 2016 Hawaii Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, we estimated weighted prevalence of 8 preparedness behaviors. Results: Among 1010 respondents (weighted response rate, 56.3%), 79.3% reported at least 1 preparedness behavior, and 11.2% performed all 8 behaviors. The prevalence of women with a recent live birth in Hawaii reporting preparedness behaviors includes: 63.0% (95% CI: 58.7-67.1%) having enough supplies at home for at least 7 days, 41.3% (95% CI: 37.1-45.6%) having an evacuation plan for their child(ren), 38.7% (95% CI: 34.5-43.0%) having methods to keep in touch, 37.8% (95% CI: 33.7-42.1%) having an emergency meeting place, 36.6% (95% CI: 32.6-40.9%) having an evacuation plan to leave home, 34.9% (95% CI: 30.9-39.2%) having emergency supplies to take with them if they have to leave quickly, 31.8% (95% CI: 27.9-36.0%) having copies of important documents, and 31.6% (95% CI: 27.7-35.8%) having practiced what to do during a disaster. Conclusions: One in 10 women practiced all 8 behaviors, indicating more awareness efforts are needed among this population in Hawaii. The impact of preparedness interventions implemented in Hawaii can be tracked with this question over time.

WAR, MONEY, MERCY: ARMY AND UNIONS OF LANDS AND CITIES IN THE YEARS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

В историографии Февральской революции продолжает господствовать политизированный подход в освещении деятельности общественных организаций помощи больным и раненым, используется узкая база, привлекаемые источники страдают односторонностью. Автор предлагает отказаться от политизированности при решении данной проблемы и рассмотреть этот вопрос в свете особенностей Первой мировой войны, как тотальной, требовавшей значительного участия общественности в мобилизации тыла. В настоящей работе используются новые архивные материалы, которые позволяют поновому, максимально объективно рассмотреть ряд вопросов. Настоящая статья имеет целью выявление причин обращения армии за помощью к Всероссийским союзам земств и городов, выявление основных аспектов плана эвакуации, места в нем общественных организаций, вопросов сотрудничества на фронте и в тылу армии и общественности. В работе приводятся данные о финансировании, его структуре, объемах помощи, ее эффективности со стороны союзов земств и городов, их вклад в решение деловых вопросов в сфере санитарного обеспечения армии и населения, а также вопросы нарушений в организации этой деятельности. Автор фокусирует внимание на вынужденности для армии использовать работу союзов земств и городов, как самых крупных инициативных помощников в военной мобилизации общества. Но это же поставило армию перед необходимостью защищать деятельность союзов от нападок консервативных сил в правительстве, даже несмотря на нарушения в деятельности общественных организаций. In the historiography of the February Revolution the politicized approach to the coverage of the activity of public organizations for the help to the sick and wounded continues to dominate, a narrow base is used, and the sources used suffer from onesidedness. The author proposes to abandon politicization in tackling this problem and to consider this question in the light of the peculiarities of the World War I as a total war, which demanded considerable public participation in the mobilization of the home front. This paper uses new archival materials, which allow a new, most objective examination of a number of issues. The present article is aimed at revealing the reasons of the army's request for help to the All-Russian unions of zemstvos and cities, revealing the main aspects of the evacuation plan, the place of public organizations in it, the issues of cooperation at the front and in the rear of the army and the public. The work provides data on financing, its structure, scope of assistance, its efficiency on the part of zemstvos and towns unions, their contribution to solving business questions in the field of sanitary provision of the army and population, as well as the questions of violations in the organization of this activity. The author focuses on the necessity for the army to use the work of zemstvo and city unions as the largest proactive helpers in the military mobilization of society. But this also put the army in the position of having to defend the activities of the unions against the attacks of conservative forces in the government, even in spite of the irregularities in the activities of public organizations.

Developing Transportation Response Strategies for Wildfire Evacuations via an Empirically Supported Traffic Simulation of Berkeley, California

Government agencies must make rapid and informed decisions in wildfires to evacuate people safely. However, current evacuation simulation tools for resource-strapped agencies largely fail to compare possible transportation responses or incorporate empirical evidence from past wildfires. Consequently, this study employs online survey data from evacuees of the 2017 Northern California Wildfires ( n = 37), the 2017 Southern California Wildfires ( n = 175), and the 2018 Carr Wildfire ( n = 254) to inform a policy-oriented traffic evacuation simulation model. The simulation is tested for a hypothetical wildfire evacuation in the wildland-urban interface of Berkeley, California. The study focuses on variables including fire speed, departure time distribution, towing of items, transportation mode, GPS-enabled rerouting, phased evacuations (i.e., allowing higher-risk residents to leave earlier), and contraflow (i.e., switching all lanes away from danger). It was found that reducing evacuating household vehicles (i.e., to one vehicle per household) and increasing GPS-enabled rerouting (e.g., 50% participation) lowered exposed vehicles (i.e., total vehicles in the fire frontier) by over 50% and evacuation time estimates (ETEs) by about 30% from baseline. Phased evacuations with a suitable time interval reduced exposed vehicles most significantly (over 90%) but produced slightly longer ETEs. Both contraflow (on limited links because of resource constraints) and slowing fire speed were effective in lowering number of exposed vehicles (around 50%), but not ETEs. Extended contraflow can reduce both exposed vehicles and ETEs. It is recommended that agencies develop a communication and parking plan to reduce the number of evacuating vehicles, create and communicate a phased evacuation plan, and build partnerships with GPS-routing services.