Understanding public hurricane evacuation decisions and responses to forecast and warning messages

The survey presented different members of the public with different test messages about the same hypothetical hurricane approaching Miami. Participants' responses to the information were evaluated using questions about their likelihood of evacuating and their perceptions of the information and the information source.

Recipients of the test message about storm surge height and the message about extreme impacts from storm surge had higher evacuation intentions, compared to nonrecipients. However, recipients of the extreme-impacts message also rated the information as more overblown and the information source as less reliable. The probabilistic message about landfall location interacted with the other textual messages in unexpected ways, reducing the other messages' effects on evacuation intentions.