Heterogeneous Evacuation Responses to Storm Forecast Attributes

Abstract

This paper investigates the variation in the effects of key storm forecast factors on hypothetical evacuation decisions collected from a mail survey using a random-effects probit model with heterogeneity. Results indicate that once heterogeneity is accounted for, wind speed and landfall time are the only two significant storm forecast attributes. Further, through the use of interaction terms between the forecast attributes and individual-specific indicators, the impact of the forecast factors were found to vary significantly across race, gender, the presence of disabled persons, and geography.