ABSTRACT Objective: This study investigated how the effectiveness of household emergency plans during tornadoes was associated with family discussions, and the attributes of the plan for different age groups. Methods: A telephone survey was conducted in 2014, one year after two 2013 Enhanced Fujita 4/5 tornadoes. The working sample included 223 respondents who reported having a household emergency plan before the tornadoes. The latent class analysis was used to identify the patterns of the plans and develop a typology based on their content. Logistic regression was used to examine predictors for plan effectiveness. Results: Two classes of plans were identified: quality plans that were rich in content and limited plans that had lower levels of content richness. Older adults were less likely to have quality plans and less likely to have family discussions. Quality of the plan and discussions with family members increased plan effectiveness among older adults, but not younger adults. Conclusions: Better emergency planning could be more important for older than for younger adults. The findings were discussed from a gerontological perspective that focuses on older adults’ unique needs, vulnerabilities, and resilience factors.
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Effectiveness of Household Emergency Plans in Violent Tornadoes
Objective: This study examined factors that were associated with the effectiveness of pre-existing household
emergency plans during the 2011 EF5 Joplin and EF4 Tuscaloosa tornadoes. We focused on
whether discussing with family members helped increase the plan’s effectiveness.
Methods: A telephone survey based on random sampling was conducted in 2012 with 1006 respondents in
both cities. Each city experienced huge losses, injuries, and casualties. The working sample included 494
respondents who had a household emergency plan in place before these tornadoes.
Results: Multinomial logistic regression showed that discussing with family members increased the helpfulness of the plan in Joplin, where people had not experienced tornadoes frequently and were less prepared for tornadoes relative to residents in Tuscaloosa.
Conclusions: This study provides empirical evidence on the importance of encouraging family involvement when making household emergency plans, especially in places that are less prepared for disasters than those that are better prepared.
Key Words: disaster preparedness, household emergency plan, tornado, vulnerability
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- Award ID(s):
- 1839516
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10187192
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Disaster medicine and public health preparedness
- ISSN:
- 1935-7893
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2020.129
