Communicating Hurricane Risk with Virtual Reality: A Pilot Project

Landfalling hurricanes in the United States can inflict extreme damage and loss of life. The latter, particularly, can be caused by a host of socioeconomic factors, including insufficient understanding of risk by individuals expected to be impacted by the storm. Thus, we test the use of an emerging technology, virtual reality (VR), to enhance the communication of real-time risk from a hurricane forecast to make landfall. In this pilot study, individuals are presented with a hypothetical scenario where a major hurricane is forecast to impact their community within 48-72 h. The survey includes two different types of warning products related to the hypothetical hurricane: static text and maps emulating those traditionally used by media outlets and local officials to communicate risk, and a VR video simulating a hurricane landfall in a residential neighborhood. We survey two groups of equal size (each n = 62), one viewing both the VR simulation and traditional products, and the other only the latter. Each group was then asked a series of Likert-scale and open-ended questions to assess the effectiveness of both products. We determine that participants viewing both the VR and traditional products are significantly more likely to take action in preparation for the hypothetical landfall than those being exposed to just the traditional products. These results demonstrate that VR can be a useful component of hurricane warning products, and further work can be done to improve the effectiveness of such products and assess how broader segments of the population can access this information.