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Emergency Management: Evacuations

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Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency Management

Definition

Evacuation is a process intended to temporarily move people from a hazardous location to a place of greater safety.

Introduction

This entry addresses vehicular evacuation from environmental hazards, but not pedestrian evacuation from buildings, aircraft, or ships because the scale and dynamics of these evacuations is quite different (Aguirre et al. 2011; Bolton 2007; Nelson and Mowrer 2002; Peacock et al. 2011). Moreover, the focus is on preimpact rather than postimpact evacuations because preimpact evacuations face the challenge of clearing the risk area before the beginning of hazard exposure (Cova et al. 2017).

Small-scale evacuations can be improvised by risk area residents without any coordination by authorities, as was the case in the American Samoa tsunami (Lindell et al. 2015). Large-scale evacuations take place surprisingly frequently; an evacuation involving 1000 people or more takes place every 2–3 weeks in the United States (Dotson and Jones 2005). Moreover,...

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Further Reading

  • Lindell, M. K., Murray-Tuite, P., Wolshon, B., & Baker, E. J. (2019). Large-scale evacuation: The analysis, modeling, and management of emergency relocation from hazardous areas. New York: Routledge.

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  • Tierney, K. J., & Waugh, W. F., Jr. (Eds.). (2007). Emergency management: Principles and practice for local government (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: International City/County Management Association.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants IIS-1540469, CMMI-1760766, and CMMI-1826455. None of the conclusions expressed here necessarily reflects views other than those of the author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Hazards Mitigation Planning and Research, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Michael K. Lindell

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  1. Michael K. Lindell
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Correspondence to Michael K. Lindell .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept of Security, Fire & Emergency Mgmt, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, USA

    Lauren R. Shapiro

  2. Dept. of Security, Fire & Emergency Mgmt, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA

    Marie-Helen Maras

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Lindell, M.K. (2019). Emergency Management: Evacuations. In: Shapiro, L., Maras, MH. (eds) Encyclopedia of Security and Emergency Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_106-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69891-5_106-1

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