Knowledge and Perception of Single-Family Residential Building Resilience and Its Impact on Disaster Evacuations Decisions

Hurricane is one of the major coastal disasters and causes loss of life and property damage. Resilient residential buildings are essential to protect the affected communities in the face of hurricanes. Residents’ knowledge of the building structures in which they stay and their perception of the risks are critical to their disaster preparation and response, such as rational evacuation decisions. In order to better understand whether and how people’s knowledge and perception of building structures affect their evacuation decisions, an online survey was created and distributed. The survey mainly includes two parts. In the first part, respondents’ knowledge on the structure characteristics (e.g., building materials, roof style) of their homes were tested. In the second part, respondents were asked if they were to stay at home or evacuate under hypothetical hurricane scenarios. The survey was distributed to 452 undergraduate civil and environmental engineering students at the University of Connecticut. Seventy valid responses were collected. Several findings were identified through analysis of the survey responses. First, it was found that many respondents lacked basic knowledge of crucial structural characteristics of their homes. Second, it was found that over 50% of the respondents overestimated the structural performance of their homes in the face of hurricanes. The lack of knowledge and misperception could lead to irrational evacuation decisions of respondents in the hypothetical scenarios. Finally, it was identified that providing additional information (e.g., pictures of damage from previous hurricanes) to the respondents could lead to more rational decision making.