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

need to determine whether an evacuation should be ordered and, ifso, the best way to carry it out. With a no-notice incident, sufficientinformation is likely to be unavailable to decision makers before adetermination has to be made on whether to order an evacuation. Instead,incomplete, imperfect, and, at times, contradictory informationabout the incident is arriving, if at all, at the same time decisions needto be made. This means decision makers must be prepared to act onlimited information, and agency staff – particularly individuals locatedin TMCs and in the field – must be trained so that they can effectivelyrespond rapidly and with imperfect information.An advance-noticeevacuation is reallya preventativecourse of actionwhile a no-noticeevacuation is aresponse activity.Imperfect information is problematic under normal circumstances.This is the case even more so with no-notice evacuations due to thequick response time required. In advance-notice evacuations, jurisdictionsmake decisions regarding the implementation of an evacuationto prevent lives from being put in imminent danger; in a no-noticescenario, citizens are usually already at risk. Decision makers havelittle or no time to wait for additional or better information in a nonoticescenario because any delay will likely have a significant effect onthe safety of their citizens; they must be willing to make decisions withwhatever information is available at the time.What does this mean for transportation officials? From a transportationstandpoint, during a no-notice evacuation transportation agencieswill have to be in close contact with decision makers about which evacuationroutes and traffic management tactics should be used. Decisionson which roads to use will be based on the capacity, safety, andpotential chokepoints of those roads, among other factors describedin this Primer. However, there is insufficient time during a no-noticeincident to determine the capacity, safety, and potential chokepointsof all roadways under a transportation agency’s jurisdiction; suchinformation should already have been compiled and prepared for use.Preplanning, computer modeling, and responder training and exercising,all critical aspects, will be discussed in depth throughout the othersections of this Primer.PREPLANNING VS. ADVANCE PLANNINGFor any agency/organization/jurisdiction that will have a role in a nonoticeevacuation, preplanning is a necessary undertaking. It must notbe done only once; the process and the findings need to be updated10 USING HIGHWAYS FOR NO-NOTICE EVACUATIONS