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

  • Developments in toll interoperability
    July 16, 2012
    The North Carolina Turnpike Authority's JJ Eden talks about developments within the Alliance for Toll Interoperability. The Alliance for Toll Interoperability grew out of the US State of North Carolina's moves to introduce modern, Open Road Tolling (ORT) and the identification of revenue 'holes' when it came to out-of-state customers. Initially, the Alliance looked to achieve some form of common ground when it came to the use of transponders used by different agencies but alighted on video-based tolling as
    Read More
  • Cubic: predictive analytics is putting fortune tellers out of business
    November 23, 2018
    The rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence means that fortune tellers will soon be out of business. Ed Chavis takes a behind the scenes look at the world of predictive analytics ver since organisations started taking advantage of insights derived from Big Data, data scientists concentrated their efforts on the ability to make correct assumptions about the future. A few years later, with the help of automation, developments in machine learning (ML) and advancements in the application of a
    Read More
  • Olympic challenges in Sochi
    May 27, 2014
    Sporting events always create problems for traffic planners and none more so than the Winter Olympics. It is difficult to think of more diametrically opposite challenges for transport planners than the 2012 Olympics in London and this year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi: from a summer event in the heart of a megacity with well established transport infrastructure to winter games with unpredictable weather and events in remote and mountainous locations. The Winter Games are always a challenge and Sochi was no di
    Read More
  • Extreme weather highlights need for sustainable transportation
    October 21, 2024
    As hurricane and floods in parts of the US wreak havoc, USDoT is re-emphasising the importance of sustainability and resilience in infrastructure and operations
    Read More

Highlighted Content