65th IHC Booklet/Program (pdf - 4.9MB) - Office of the Federal ...

Getting the Surge Message Across
Betty Hearn Morrow 1 , Jeff Lazo 2 , Jamie Rhome 3
(betty@bmorrow.com)
1 SocResearch Miami; 2 NCAR; 3 NOAA/NHC
Major initiatives are underway to improve storm surge forecasting – and to find better ways to
communicate surge risk to vulnerable coastal residents. Evidence continues to reveal that the
public under-recognizes the dangers of storm surge. The most recent example is that 15,000
people did not evacuate from Galveston Island for Hurricane Ike in spite of a forecast of up to 20
feet of storm surge. The message regarding the 200+ deaths on the Mississippi coast from
Hurricane Katrina’s surge was somehow lost.
Acknowledgement of the need to better understand how people view forecasts and warnings has
resulted in several on-going initiatives within the climate and weather enterprise including the
social sciences portion of NOAA’s Storm Surge Roadmap project and several projects on
Communicating Hurricane Information funded by the National Science Foundation. Research
with coastal citizens, local emergency managers and others provides evidence that a major
portion of the population does not understand the surge hazard adequately to take appropriate
action. If improvements are not made in the public’s understanding of storm surge threat,
extensive loss of life is likely to occur. Considerable research within numerous fields and
disciplines from the social sciences has contributed to a better understanding of how people
perceive and react to risk. This presentation will provide an overview of the research followed by
a discussion of several initiatives underway within NOAA to improve the public’s understanding
of the storm surge threat.
Poster Session – Page 36