Progression of hurricane evacuation-related dynamic decision-making with information processing

Conventional evacuation studies typically do not gauge the development of participants' certainty about evacuation-related decisions with the updates in the information provided to them. This study uses an online survey that provides three kinds of progressively varied information about the current status of a hypothetical hurricane for five days leading to its landfall and collects respondents' certainty of their situational comprehension and evacuation-related decisions each day. Most participants (84%) made a final decision (60% evacuate) after seeing information of just one day (four days before the landfall), indicating a tendency of swift decision-making. Modeling shows that the time spent looking at information, especially uncertainty cone fore-cast maps, positively influences the understanding of the hurricane's status, which in turn helps in increasing the certainty of making evacuation-related decisions, with an increasing temporal effect. This study contributes to the understanding of the public perception of information and its association with evacuation-related decision-making.