Botzen W J Wouter, Mol Jantsje M, Robinson Peter J, Zhang Juan, Czajkowski Jeffrey
Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Utrecht University School of Economics (U.S.E.), Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Nat Hazards (Dordr). 2022;111(1):507-522. doi: 10.1007/s11069-021-05064-2. Epub 2021 Oct 20.
The U.S. 2020 hurricane season was extraordinary because of a record number of named storms coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic. This study draws lessons on how individual hurricane preparedness is influenced by the additional risk stemming from a pandemic, which turns out to be a combination of perceptions of flood and pandemic risks that have opposite effects on preparedness behavior. We conducted a survey in early June 2020 of 600 respondents in flood-prone areas in Florida to obtain insights into households' risk perceptions and preparedness for the upcoming hurricane season under COVID-19. The results show that concerns over COVID-19 dominated flood risk perceptions and negatively impacted people's evacuation intentions. Whereas hotel costs were the main obstacle to evacuating during Hurricane Dorian in 2019 in the same geographic study area, the main evacuation obstacle identified in the 2020 hurricane season is COVID-19. Our statistical analyses investigating the factors influencing evacuation intentions show that older individuals are less likely to evacuate under a voluntary order, because they are more concerned about the consequences of becoming infected by COVID-19. We observe similar findings based on a real-time survey we conducted in Florida with another group of respondents under the threat of Hurricane Eta at the end of the hurricane season in November 2020. We discuss the implications of our findings for risk communication and emergency management policies that aim to improve hurricane preparedness when dealing with additional health risks such as a pandemic, a situation that may be exacerbated under the future climate.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11069-021-05064-2.
2020年美国飓风季情况特殊，因为命名风暴数量创纪录，且与新冠疫情同时发生。本研究吸取了关于个人飓风防范准备如何受到疫情带来的额外风险影响的经验教训，结果表明这是对洪水风险和疫情风险的认知共同作用的结果，而这两种认知对防范准备行为有着相反的影响。2020年6月初，我们对佛罗里达州洪水易发地区的600名受访者进行了一项调查，以深入了解家庭在新冠疫情下对即将到来的飓风季的风险认知和防范准备情况。结果显示，对新冠疫情的担忧主导了洪水风险认知，并对人们的疏散意愿产生了负面影响。在同一地理研究区域，2019年多里安飓风期间，酒店费用是疏散的主要障碍，而在2020年飓风季，确定的主要疏散障碍是新冠疫情。我们对影响疏散意愿的因素进行的统计分析表明，老年人在自愿疏散命令下疏散的可能性较小，因为他们更担心感染新冠病毒的后果。基于我们于2020年11月飓风季结束时在佛罗里达州对另一组受访者在伊塔飓风威胁下进行的实时调查，我们也观察到了类似的结果。我们讨论了研究结果对风险沟通和应急管理政策的影响，这些政策旨在在应对诸如疫情等额外健康风险时提高飓风防范准备水平，而在未来气候条件下，这种情况可能会加剧。
在线版本包含可在网址10.1007/s11069-021-05064-2获取的补充材料。
