Challenge of Evacuating the Carless in Five Major US Cities Identifying the Key Issues Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The 2007 evacuation of New Orleans, Louisiana, was one of the most successful in U.S. history with more than 1.2 million people evacuating the region by car during a 48-h period. It was also one of the most unsuccessful evacuations for a carless society-those without access to cars or those without the physical or economic means to evacuate who were stranded below sea level. Reasons for the successful car-based evacuation stem from local, regional, and interstate collaboration of transportation professionals, emergency managers, and state police to establish a highway contra-flow traffic management system. Evacuating carless and special needs populations requires collaboration of various stakeholders, including transportation planners, emergency managers, health-care providers, and others. This discussion is based on stakeholder focus groups across five U.S. regions, including Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; New Orleans; New York; and San Francisco, California. The paper concludes with a discussion of overall themes emerging from the focus groups around coordinating emergency preparedness at a regional scale.

published proceedings

  • TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH RECORD

altmetric score

  • 7

author list (cited authors)

  • Renne, J. L., Sanchez, T. W., Jenkins, P., & Peterson, R.

citation count

  • 27

complete list of authors

  • Renne, John L||Sanchez, Thomas W||Jenkins, Pam||Peterson, Robert

publication date

  • January 2009