This research explores technological, behavioral, and institutional barriers and identifies solutions to implement and conduct evacuation by sea during a disaster.

Disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, and nuclear incidents threaten the safety of Americans at home: now and in the future. Whether these disasters occur in large urban areas or isolated rural communities, they often result in evacuations. Most evacuations in the United States occur by private automobile; however, a significant portion of the U.S. population lacks access to a person vehicle and relies on mass transit. Others live on islands and in isolated communities with limited roads for vehicle evacuation.

The failure to evacuate 20,000 people from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina suggests that additional means of evacuation are needed, especially for the carless, elderly, and other vulnerable populations. The U.S. Government has planned for many disaster response activities using vessels. This includes lodging first responders onboard ships and the transportation of supplies by sea. Additionally, the U.S. Government is prepared to use vessels in support of Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO) abroad and Migrant Interdiction Operations off the U.S. coast. However, formal planning for domestic evacuation by sea has not occurred at the national level. The lack of formal planning may be the result of technological, behavioral, and institutional barriers that hinders the ability to conduct evacuation by sea after a disaster.

To identify these barriers, semi-structed interviews will be conducted with approximately 20 subject matter experts in the fields of evacuation planning, sealift, and military operations as well as representatives from social service agencies and non-profit organizations that work with at-risk populations. The results of these interviews will suggest solutions to overcome the identified barriers. Ultimately, this research seeks to inform evacuation planning by federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government agencies and will lay a foundation for future efforts to implement evacuation by sea after a disaster.

Project Team

Lead Researcher: David Ostwind, PhD Candidate, URI Department of Marine Affairs (davidostwind@uri.edu)

Principal Investigator: Prof. Austin Becker, URI Department of Marine Affairs (abecker@uri.edu)