using highways for no-notice evacuations - FHWA Operations - U.S. ...

1 INTRODUCTIONEvacuations occur for countless reasons under many different circumstances.A jurisdiction may need to evacuate one block of office buildings(water-main break), a neighborhood (forest fire), a major portionof the downtown area (terrorist attack), or even an entire city (earthquakeor hurricane). While successful evacuations are always difficultto execute due to the level of coordination required among agenciesand jurisdictions, this challenge becomes magnified during a little- orno-notice evacuation. No-notice incidents can be either small-scale orwide-scale and can happen anywhere at any time. After a no-noticeincident, responders will have a very limited window of opportunity toprepare before an evacuation begins.A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) study 1 concluded thatevacuations of 1,000 or more people occur approximately every two tothree weeks. Focusing on a 12-year period, the study determined thatmost evacuations resulted from natural disasters (58%), particularlywildfire threats to populated areas; technical disasters (36%), includingfixed site and transportation-related industrial accidents; and malevolentacts (6%), including terrorist attacks. Combine these larger-scaleevacuations with much more frequent small-scale ones, and it becomesclear that evacuations, varying in scope and probability, occur on analmost-daily basis. As such, experience and expertise in evacuationsoccur not primarily at the Federal or State levels of government, but atthe local level, as shown in Figure 1.1.INCIDENT SEVERITYPROBABILITYTrafficIncidentsHazMatIncidentsWildfiresMajor StormsMalevolentActsTrafficIncidentsTrafficIncidentsManagement ManagementLocalDisastersMajor/RegionalIncidentCatastrophicIncidentEvacuationsMalevolentActFigure 1.1. Probability of and Severity Associated with Types of Incidents.1Sandia National Laboratories, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; “Identification and Analysis ofFactors Affecting Emergency Evacuations: Main Report;” NUREG/CR-6864, Vol. 1 / SAND2004-5901.USING HIGHWAYS FOR NO-NOTICE EVACUATIONS5