Florida has ‘most limited’ disaster evacuation routes: study

Florida has 20 of the top 100 communities in the US that offer limited evacuation routes for natural disasters, says StreetLight Data. The company analysed 30,000 towns with populations under 40,000 with the aim of better preparing communities for floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. The top 100 communities was ranked by ‘evacuation risk’, which was determined by how many of the location’s daily trips enter and exit the town and via what route(s), adjusted for the number of available exits and overall populat
August 29, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

Florida has 20 of the top 100 communities in the US that offer limited evacuation routes for natural disasters, says StreetLight Data.

The company analysed 30,000 towns with populations under 40,000 with the aim of better preparing communities for floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. The top 100 communities was ranked by ‘evacuation risk’, which was determined by how many of the location’s daily trips enter and exit the town and via what route(s), adjusted for the number of available exits and overall population.

Paul Friedman, StreetLight’s chief technical officer, says: “Transportation infrastructure, and sharing information about transportation options, is one part of the complex requirements of disaster and evacuation preparation. We hope this data can be a useful support to those working in this challenging field.”

Other states that have the most evacuation-challenged towns include California (14 communities), Arizona (8), Texas (6) and Washington (also 6).

Additionally, findings revealed the most constrained evacuation routes are Camano (Washington), Hilton Head Island (South Carolina), Mercer Island (Washington), Hutchinson Island South (Florida) and Sanibel (Florida).

Urban Traffic Control

Related Content

  • Ranked: the world's most congested cities
    January 22, 2025
    Inrix data suggests billions of hours are lost worldwide, hampering economies
    Read More
  • The weighty problem of truck routing enforcement
    March 17, 2015
    The growing impact of heavy commercial vehicles on urban and interurban highway infrastructures around the world is driving the need for reliable route access restriction and monitoring. The support role of enforcement is proving fertile ground for ITS development. Bridges are especially vulnerable – and critical in terms of travel delays. The US state of Oregon’s Department of Transportation (ODOT) operates what it claims is one of the country’s most aggressive truck route restriction enforcement programme
    Read More
  • Data collection becoming a crowded market
    October 26, 2017
    New ways of gathering data can revolutionise traffic and travel management, so is the writing on the wall for the traditional methods? Jon Masters reports. There are two big industries that stand to be revolutionised by massive increases in data – healthcare and transportation, says Finlay Clarke, the UK managing director of the smartphone sat nav traffic app, Waze. “At present we’re really only at the start of how cities, in particular, will be transformed,” he says.
    Read More
  • Getting more for less from traffic data
    August 15, 2012
    Collection of traffic and transit data has grown significantly, combining with advances in connectivity and computational modelling to good effect. Desire to do more with less – to make budgets go further – has helped create a boom in the collection and study of traffic and transport data. Studies are becoming longer, greater in number and further in-depth as more intelligence is sought, plus, transportation agencies are looking to make processes of data collection less costly, or more efficient.
    Read More

Highlighted Content