Evacuation decision-making : building a model to account for risk-taking preference

: One of the most stressful decisions a coastal emergency manager may face is the decision to order a large-scale evacuation for a hurricane. Even in a best-case scenario, evacuations are not a panacea. They are unpopular, expensive, disruptive and highly vulnerable to their own hazards. These issues become even more daunting when exacerbated by high populations in vulnerable areas, limited evacuation routes and a lack of nearby shelter space, which combine to create extremely long evacuation clearance times. Add forecast errors and uncertainty to these and one begins to understand the complexity of the decision-making process. These were the challenges faced by the authors as they tried to define and document the evacuation decision-making process in Lee County in Southwest Florida.