By Justin Ammon
Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station

MISSISSIPPI STATE — Sharon Hodge is not a social scientist, but as a Gulfport resident who stayed for two of the nation’s deadliest hurricanes -- Camille (1969) and Katrina (2005) -- she understands the type of person who chooses to tackle these mega storms.

Hodge is program officer for the Northern Gulf Institute, a research hub for the north Gulf consisting of five southeastern universities led by Mississippi State University. She can conjure up an image of a prototypical storm rider. She thinks of her father --a construction man and retired U.S. Marine Corps jet fighter pilot.

“He is one tough cookie. He can do just about anything,” she said. “These are the kinds of people who can face adversity, can make it through boot camp, serve in the military, or go to war. The people who aren’t very good at fixing things around the house are more likely to head out.”

Hodge said her neighbor, whom she described as a “little lady,” has been facing hurricanes for more than 70 years and still mows her own lawn.

“No matter what I tell her that credible researchers tell me, she won’t evacuate for anything,” Hodge said.

Hodge knows stories about her friends and family paint only a part of the picture about the type of person who chooses not to evacuate for a hurricane. She is coordinating research on coastal resiliency and environmental issues.

To that end, two Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station scientists recently explored why coastal residents choose to leave or to weather the storm.

Funded by the Northern Gulf Institute, agricultural economists Daniel Petrolia and Sanjoy Bhattacharjee developed and distributed 2,000 surveys in the coastal counties of four Gulf of Mexico states, targeting the first two inland counties in each state. Of those, 531 were filled out and returned.

The survey questions included 15 hypothetical hurricane scenarios with four storm characteristics: wind speed, storm intensity trend, estimated time of land fall and type of evacuation notice.

“We were looking into demographics including age, gender and race,” said Petrolia, an assistant professor specializing in environmental economics. “At the same time, it was important to understand the characteristics of the storm, whether the evacuation order was mandatory, the wind speed and how people would react.”

They found that as the wind speed of the hurricane grew, individuals were more likely to say they would evacuate, Petrolia added.

The MSU study found that individuals with no evacuation plans or destination in mind, and those with pets were more likely to ride out a storm. Individuals who live farther from the coast were more likely to wait to make the decision on evacuation.

People who identified themselves as black, disabled, or without a high school diploma were more likely to evacuate. People with degrees exceeding a bachelor’s were the most likely to hunker down for a storm.

Petrolia warned that some of the study’s findings correlate and some contradict one another. For example, people with low incomes are often the least likely to evacuate because they cannot afford transportation. Using this logic, people with master’s or doctoral degrees typically have higher incomes than the general public, allowing them to avoid hurricane traps such as mobile homes located in low-lying areas. People living in these situations are more likely to evacuate.

Petrolia said the finding reaches a bit deeper. He pointed out that the Mississippi coast has many upscale properties lining the beaches, differing from the social dynamics of New Orleans.

“This is speculation, but maybe the more educated you get, you begin to think you’re smarter than the weatherman,” Petrolia said. “You think, ‘I’m the smart guy. What are the chances of it really hitting me?’ People you would think have the most wherewithal to evacuate, to drive anywhere and get a decent hotel, shouldn’t be the least likely to go.”

Another explanation is that better educated and subsequently wealthier individuals have more to lose, Petrolia said.

Access to all-day streams of urgent-sounding coverage as a hurricane develops and may be another reason people stay put in the face of hurricanes.

Hodge said a significant number of coastal residents who stay home simply do not want to deal with the bottleneck traffic that evacuations create, especially when some seasons produce four or five separate evacuation notices.

“Evacuating is a daunting prospect. I’ve heard so many stories of people stuck in gridlock,” Hodge said. “During Ivan, I knew people who were stuck in traffic for 18 hours traveling from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.”

She said many people doubt the accuracy of current hurricane predictors earlier than 48 hours before expected landfall when making evacuation decisions. People compare risk of harm to home and person to getting stuck on the highway if the storm actually hits, she said.

The research study, which was recently published in the journal Coastal Management, also found that people who were confident they would be rescued were far more likely to ride out hurricanes. Most respondents generally did not pay attention to whether or not local governments considered an evacuation mandatory.

“Age, race, disability, distance and education were significant in explaining one’s decision to wait relative to choosing to evacuate immediately,” Petrolia said.

The study found that previous hurricane experience also influences an individual’s decision to evacuate, as does the difference between the three-day versus five-day landfall notice.

“The results should provide researchers and policymakers additional information on devising their strategies to evacuate coastal residents,” Petrolia said. “Different approaches may be needed if the objective is to encourage residents to make decisions sooner versus attempting to convince nonevacuees to change their minds.”