Tornado shelter-seeking behavior and tornado shelter options among mobile home residents in the United States

Abstract

Residents of 401 mobile homes in Georgia, Mississippi, Illinois, and Oklahoma were surveyed after they heard a tornado warning. Most residents (69%) did not seek shelter during the warning. Half of those who sought shelter went to the frame house of a friend, neighbor, or relative, and 25% of those sought shelter in a basement or underground shelter. Some of the places where residents sought shelter were of dubious quality, such as their own mobile home, another mobile home, or in an out-building. Twenty-one percent of mobile home residents believed that they had a basement or underground shelter available as shelter during a tornado warning, and about half of those said they would drive to the shelter. Residents said they would drive if the shelter was more than 200 m away. Fifteen percent actually had a basement or underground shelter suitable as shelter within 200 m of their mobile home, but only 43% of the residents would use those shelters. The most common reason cited for not using the shelters was that they did not know the people who lived there. Likewise, a frame house or other sturdy building was within 200 m of 58% of the mobile homes, but only 35% of the residents stated they would use those houses for shelter. Thirtyone percent of mobile home residents had a ditch that was at least 0.5 m deep within 200 m of the mobile home. However, 44% of these ditches had utility lines overhead, 23% had water in them, and 20% had trees overhead. The limited tornado shelter options among mobile home residents in the United States needs to be incorporated into safety instructions so that residents without nearby shelter are allowed to drive to safer shelter.

An exploratory study of the influence of severe weather radar broadcasts

“…Lines of theory supporting this association include Protection Motivation Theory (Rogers 1975;Floyd et al 2000) and the Protection Action Decision Model (Lindell and Perry 2004;Lindell and Hwang 2008). Past research indicates that the perception of a threat's severity and the danger one associates with a storm have a strong influence on decisions made during hazardous situations-such as hurricanes or tornadoes (Baker 1979;Riad and Norris 1998;Mitchem 2003;Schmidlin et al 2009). For example, Baker (1979) and Riad and Norris (1998) found that people who expected a hurricane to be "bad" were much more likely to evacuate prior to the hurricane than those who did not perceive as much risk.…”

“…For example, Baker (1979) and Riad and Norris (1998) found that people who expected a hurricane to be "bad" were much more likely to evacuate prior to the hurricane than those who did not perceive as much risk. Similarly, people who felt that they were in danger from a tornado also were more likely to seek shelter than people who did not feel in danger (Mitchem 2003;Schmidlin et al 2009;Chaney and Weaver 2010). The role of risk perception holds true in actual as well as hypothetical situations.…”

“…Television has been historically the most common source of both routine (Tan 1976;Lazo et al 2009) and severe weather (Legates and Biddle 1999;Balluz et al 2000;Brown et al 2002;Hammer and Schmidlin 2002;Sherman-Morris 2005, 2010Schmidlin et al 2009) information; and the primary communicator of the weather information on television is the local weathercaster (Wilson 2008). Despite this importance, few studies (e.g., Sherman-Morris et al 2005;Drost et al 2015) have examined the influence that the weathercaster has on factors such as trust in severe weather information, risk perception, behavior, or recall of information.…”

Spatial Analyses of the 2011 Joplin Tornado Mortality: Deaths by Interpolated Damage Zones and Location of Victims

“…Simmons and Sutter (2011) have identified four major vulnerabilities for tornado casualties: tornadoes that occur overnight, tornados that occur during the fall/winter months, residence in a mobile home, and location in the United States (specifically, the southeastern part of the United States; see also Schmidlin et al 2009;Chaney and Weaver 2010). Whether people are in their homes or driving, whether they are asleep or awake, and whether the tornado is visible or surrounded by rain are factors associated with the probability of death in a tornado (Wurman et al 2007).…”

Mobile Home Residents and Hurricane Vulnerability in South Florida: Research Gaps and Challenges

“…Although the characteristics and distributions of mobile home residents have been of interest to social scientists for over 50 years (French and Hadden 1965), a limited social science literature has explored issues such as socioeconomic differences (French and Hadden 1968), civic engagement (Edwards et al 1973), retiree sociopolitics (Irby 2000), the stigma often associated with living in trailer parks (Kusenbach 2009), crime (McCarty 2010), and immigrant identity (Kusenbach 2015). With increased storm intensity due to climate change, interest has shifted to mobile home vulnerability due to natural hazards such as tornadoes and hurricanes (Schmidlin et al 2009;Chaney and Weaver 2010;Kusenbach et al 2010;Ash 2016).…”