Improving Emergency Evacuation Preparedness: Policy and Organizational Implications for Transportation Agencies

When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the United States’ Gulf Coast in 2005, the storms revealed woeful inadequacies in our nation’s emergency preparedness and response capacities, including – notably – how we plan for and execute large-scale evacuations. Since then, all levels of government have striven to improve the ways in which the public sector manages the mass movement of people in the face of a major disaster. Building on previous work conducted by the investigators, this project explored changes select metropolitan areas have made in planning for and implementing emergency evacuations in the post-Katrina era, placing particular emphasis on how transportation and emergency management officials across multiple levels of government have collaborated in developing and refining regional mass evacuation plans and procedures. Given the complications disasters can cause for traffic management and infrastructure, along with the pivotal role surface transportation plays in support of emergency evacuations, this study directly addressed the NEUTC’s theme of strategic management of disruptive change in transportation systems – with a specific focus on disruptive environments.

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• Record URL:
  • https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/26581
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  New England University Transportation Center

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 40-279
  Cambridge, MA  United States  01239

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Howitt, Arnold M
• Publication Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Pagination: 3p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cooperation; Disaster preparedness; Emergency management; Evacuation; Metropolitan areas; Strategic planning; Transportation departments
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Security and Emergencies; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01501341
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: HVDR23-1
• Files: UTC, NTL, TRIS, RITA, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Dec 16 2013 2:07PM