ABSTRACT
This study examines risk perceptions and evacuation planning for those residents affected by Hurricane Laura}the first major hurricane evacuation during the COVID-19 pandemic}and Hurricane Sally, prior to the wide-spread availability of vaccines. Research on hurricane evacuation behavior and risk perceptions during a pandemic is critical for quantifying the intersect of these compounding threats. Analyses captured how people perceive public shelters and whether evacuation choices changed in light of the pandemic. Many study participants considered themselves vulnerable to COVID-19 (39.4%), and two-thirds believed it would be “very serious” if they or their loved ones contracted COVID-19, but this had no impact on their actual evacuation decision-making. Approximately 75% of the sample stayed at home during Hurricanes Laura or Sally, and, of these, just over 80% indicated that COVID-19 was a somewhat important deciding factor. This reflects the partial role that COVID-19 played in balancing individual and household protective action decision-making during complex disasters, whereas 15.5% wanted to evacuate but waited until it was too late. For those who evacuated to a hotel, many found that staff and guests wore masks and socially distanced in common spaces. Of particular interest is that individuals have a continued negative perception of public shelters’ ability to safeguard against COVID-19 that was coupled with a significant decrease in the number of respondents that would potentially use shelters in 2020 as compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic. These results have informed and will inform future hazard mitigation planning during the current pandemic or future pandemics or infectious disease outbreaks. © 2022 American Meteorological Society.
ABSTRACT
With the continued social distancing requirements of the novel COVID-19 pandemic, many in-person educational programs were halted in 2020, including specialty education and research experiences for undergraduates. However, some Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) progressed in summer 2020 in a fully virtual format. The importance of understanding how these practical STEM skills translated in a virtual REU format, in addition to areas of improvement going forward, are critical to the development of effective online STEM learning through REUs. Two survey instruments were designed to capture data from both the REU mentors (including the PIs) and the students in the programs. Questions included information on the REU they participated in, their perceptions of the best and worst aspects, their overall satisfaction with the experience, and their likelihood to seek out virtual REUs in the future. Overall, both students and faculty involved in virtual REUs were glad to have had the experience and were satisfied with it. The benefits of flexibility, the ease of communication and scheduling, and the increased access to online resources were echoed as the strengths of the virtual format. However, many believe that an in-person REU had benefits that could not be replicated in a virtual environment, including community building and hands-on experiences. Several were bogged down by technical difficulties. With more effort made to include community building to a greater extent, as well as considerations and planning for technical demands, the future of widely accessible online REU experiences is a bright one.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic increases the complexity of planning for hurricanes as social distancing is in direct conflict with human mobility and congregation. COVID-19 presents not only urgent challenges for this hurricane season due to the likeliness of continued or heightened COVID-19 threat, but also challenges with the next hurricane season with additional waves of the pandemic. There is severe urgency to understand the impact of COVID-19 risk perceptions and the extent people are willing to risk their lives by sheltering in place rather than evacuating during severe hurricanes. In June 2020, a survey (in both English and Spanish) of 40 questions was disseminated through regional planning councils, emergency management, and the media to Florida residents. A total of 7,072 people responded from over 50 counties. Most data obtained were ordinal or categorical in nature, encouraging usage of nonparametric analysis and chi-square tests. Almost half the respondents view themselves as vulnerable to COVID-19 due to preexisting health conditions, and 74.3% of individuals viewed the risk of being in a shelter during the COVID-19 pandemic as more dangerous than enduring hurricane hazards. Additionally, there was a significant number of individuals who would choose to not utilize a public shelter during COVID-19 when they would have previously. Officials can use the results of this study regarding how household evacuation plans change with social distancing to better inform strategies of shelter preparedness and COVID-19 risk mitigation to minimize risk to those in harm's way of storm surge and other hurricane effects during a mandatory evacuation order. © 2021 American Meteorological Society.