Homeowner Behavioral Intent to Evacuate After Flood Risk Warnings

The purpose was to create a model for improving resident attitudes toward flood evacuation warnings. Survivors of Hurricane Sandy in New York City were surveyed to test hypotheses based on a behavioral intent construct developed from the social-psychology literature. Expectancy Theory and Theory of Reasoned Action served as the basis for the personal attitude and social norm factors. Near disaster experience was derived from natural disaster studies to form a moderator of personal attitude. Credibility of the evacuation message source was engineered from Balance Theory in the consumer behavior literature as a modifier for social norms. A statistically significant model was developed using correlation, stepwise regression, ordinary least squares regression, and logistic regression. Only two composite factors were needed to capture 55.4% of the variance for behavioral intent to evacuate. The model predicted 43.9% of the evacuation decisions, with 13.3% undecided, leaving 42.8 incorrectly classified), using an ex post facto design (N=405).