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- Title
Community Response to Hurricane Threat: Estimates of Warning Issuance Time Distributions.
- Authors
SORENSEN, JOHN H.; LINDELL, MICHAEL K.; BAKERI, EARL J.; LEHMAN, WILLIAM P.
- Abstract
Hurricane evacuation warnings from local officials are one of the most significant determinants of households' evacuation departure times. Consequently, it is important to know how long after the National Hurricane Center (NHC) issues a hurricane watch or warning that local officials wait to issue evacuation warnings. The distribution of local evacuation warning issuance delays determined from poststorm assessment data shows a wide range of warning issuance delay times over an 85-h time span, although the vast majority of times fall within a 40-h window. Nearly 30% of the jurisdictions issued evacuation warnings before an NHC hurricane warning. Only 5% delayed the decision for more than 25 h after theNHChurricane warning. The curves for warning issuance delays, using both theNHCwatch andNHCwarning issuance times as reference points, are very different from the warning issuance curves observed for the rapid-onset events. The hurricane data exhibit much more of an "S shape" than the exponential shape that is seen for rapid-onset data. Instead, curves for three different types of storm tracks, defined by a perpendicular/parallel dimension and a straight/meandering dimension, follow three noticeably different logistic distributions. The data also indicate that warnings were issued significantly earlier for coastal counties than for inland counties. These results have direct practical value to analysts that are calculating evacuation time estimates for coastal jurisdictions. Moreover, they suggest directions for future research on the reasons for the timing of local officials' hurricane evacuation decisions.
- Publication
Weather, Climate & Society, 2020, Vol 12, Issue 4, p837
- ISSN
1948-8327
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1175/WCAS-D-20-0031.1