Household evacuation decisions and relationship to infrastructure disruption using evidence from Hurricane Irma

Alberto J. Lamadrid (), Monica Escaleras, Diana Mitsova, Ann-Margaret Esnard and Alka Sapat
Additional contact information
Alberto J. Lamadrid: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Monica Escaleras: Florida Atlantic University
Diana Mitsova: Florida Atlantic University
Ann-Margaret Esnard: Georgia State University
Alka Sapat: Florida Atlantic University

Environment Systems and Decisions, 2025, vol. 45, issue 3, 1-22

Abstract: Abstract Hurricanes and extreme weather hazards disrupt infrastructure services causing cascading effects for households and communities. In this work, we use survey data from households affected by Hurricane Irma in south and central Florida to empirically estimate the effects of infrastructure disruptions on household evacuation decisions and to assess what factors determine the length of evacuation, after controlling for socio-economic and demographic variables. We find that the decision to evacuate prior to Hurricane Irma was affected by the prospects of losing access to critical infrastructure services, primarily electricity services. Medical infrastructure is also associated with evacuation decisions, specifically access to healthcare facilities and prescription medications. Our findings suggest that social networks provide additional support to a subset of evacuees. For those displaced to friends’ and families’ accommodations, over 63% stayed over 4 days before returning, in the upper range of the evacuation duration. The respondents linked the duration of evacuation and their returning behavior to the restoration of electrical service and access to other critical services, including the availability of fuel, food, and water supplies. Our study provides insights into the interdependence between household recovery and critical infrastructure services, notably power, communications, transportation, and health care.

Keywords: Resilient communities; Evacuation decisions; Infrastructure services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10669-025-10019-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:envsyd:v:45:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s10669-025-10019-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/10669

DOI: 10.1007/s10669-025-10019-0

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment Systems and Decisions from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().