Interactive Emergency Evacuation Guidebook

John Sorensen, Ph.D and Barbara Sorensen, Ph.D ( Prepared for the Protective Action IPT - CSEPP - February 2006)

Almost every day people evacuate from their homes, businesses or other sites, even ships, in response to actual or predicted threats or hazards. Evacuation is the primary protective action utilized in disasters such as hurricanes, floods, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, releases of hazardous or nuclear materials, and high-rise building fires and explosions. Although often precautionary, protecting human lives by withdrawing populations during times of threat remains a major emergency management strategy.  There have been some instances where removal or property and livestock to safer places has been a major evacuation activity for some businesses such as automobile or boat dealers or specialty farm managers, but these evacuation activities lack systematic validation by researchers and are only briefly discussed.  The purpose of this workbook is to provide emergency planners with an overview of knowledge and good practices related to emergency evacuations. This is not a fill-in-the-blank document that will lead to a fairly useless plan that will sit on the shelf, however it does contain some specialized templates and sample plans that can be adapted in a plan.