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Reflection on Lessons Learned: An Analysis of the Adverse Outcomes Observed During the Hurricane Rita Evacuation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2017

Karen Baker
Karen Baker*
Affiliation:
Graduate, Department of Health Policy & Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Karen Baker, JD, MPH, 1901 Connecticut Ave NW 707, Washington, DC 20009 (e-mail: karen.baker@mail.harvard.edu)
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Abstract

In September 2005, nearly 3.7 million people evacuated the Texas coastline in advance of Hurricane Rita’s landfall, making the event the largest emergency evacuation in US history. The Rita evacuation underscored the importance of planning for domestic mass-evacuation events, as the evacuation itself led to over 100 of the at least 119 deaths attributed to the storm. In the days preceding Rita’s landfall, several cascading, interrelated circumstances precipitated such adverse outcomes. This article explores the series of events leading up to the evacuation’s poor outcomes, the response following Rita to amend evacuation plans, and how Texas successfully implemented these changes during later storms to achieve better outcomes. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:115–120)

Keywords

evacuationemergency planning and managementhurricanenatural disaster
Type
Concepts in Disaster Medicine
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 115 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2017 

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