Public Works and Hurricane Evacuation Craig E. Colten, Ph.D. Carl O. Sauer Professor Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Member, PWHS Board of Trustees
n recent years the world has watched in amazement as coastal cities in the United States have attempted massive evacuations in the face of impending hurricanes. Over a million fled the LouisianaMississippi coastal areas before Katrina made landfall in 2005. That same summer Rita inspired a massive exodus from large portions of the Houston metropolitan area that ended in unprecedented traffic snarls. When Irene approached the metropolitan centers of the eastern seaboard in 2010, evacuation for selected portions of Megalopolis was encouraged and confusion ensued. Despite the limits of the transportation networks and public misunderstandings of who needs to flee, evacuation via public thoroughfares remains a cornerstone of public safety. The history behind hurricane evacuation is closely tied to the transportation infrastructure, meteorological forecasting, and customary practices that have evolved over the last century. During the first half of the twentieth century, predicting the paths of tropical cyclones was much less precise than it is today. With far less advance notice, the Weather Bureau would hoist storm warnings flags as the threat of a disturbance approached the coast—seldom more than a day in advance. Evacuation was a common response among the people living on the barrier islands of the eastern seaboard and gulf coast and in the communities in 80 APWA Reporter
July 2012
Louisiana’s coastal marshes. As the 1915 hurricane bore down on the Louisiana coast, a sizable number of people evacuated from communities in the wetlands down river from New Orleans. They could travel by train or personal transportation if they had the means to do so. Not all could afford to travel, and as a consequence the storm surge that inundated the region left a number of fatalities. Low population densities in the coastal regions were the most effective mitigation practice and minimized the burden on the limited transportation facilities available at the time. Before mid-century, personal responsibility for evacuation via either public thoroughfares or on private transit remained the framework for evacuation. The rise of civil defense after World War II and passage of disaster relief legislation in 1950 led to the formalization of public plans for evacuation from tropical cyclones and other threats— such as a nuclear attack. These plans relied on existing transportation networks. In coastal areas narrow causeways typically connected barrier islands to the mainland and presented potential bottlenecks. Again, low populations in the highly exposed coastal areas minimized the threat of serious consequences that these choke points could cause. Given the inability to provide accurate long-term forecasts, civil defense planners relied on in-place evacuation by sheltering people near
their homes. Local plans designated sturdy, multi-story schools as shelters. In a city like New Orleans, for example, there were 167 shelters, most within walking distance of residents. Proximity and redundancy reduced the advance warning time necessary and eliminated pressure on the pre-interstate highways to accommodate long-distance evacuation. A series of major hurricanes struck the U.S. coasts in the mid1950s and highlighted several emerging concerns. Increasing recreational development that brought tourists to the coastal areas during a portion of the hurricane season, with little additional development of transportation infrastructure, exposed increasing numbers of people with little hurricane experience to storms. Also, rapid urbanization in coastal cities like Miami and Houston placed additional demands on transportation networks. To contend with these issues, the U.S. Department of Commerce oversaw a national hurricane research project. It produced a model hurricane plan for coastal communities that called for development of detailed evacuation plans. As part of that effort, states designated particular roadways as hurricane evacuation routes and erected signs to help guide drivers in the event of an evacuation order. Despite this effort, calamities continued to occur as local
