Explanation of Indicator
Florida residents face an annual risk to property and personal safety from hurricanes. This risk can be mitigated by appropriate preparation by residents. Preparation includes finding out about evacuation routes and shelters, maintaining supplies such as flashlights and a radio, and knowing the appropriate source for weather and emergency reports. Moreover, this preparation should occur far in advance of any hurricane, preferably prior to the arrival of the hurricane season. Several other preparedness actions should be taken by residents when a hurricane watch is issued; however, this indicator will not measure those actions, instead focusing on the long-range preparation activities. This indicator would be an index created by responses to several questions that reflect levels of preparedness.
Data Characteristics
SOURCE
There is currently no source of data for this information.
ACQUISITION
Not applicable.
COLLECTION
Not applicable.
Recommendations
Currently there is no information available for this indicator. An annual survey of Florida residents could be developed to obtain this information.
The Florida Coastal Management Program (FCMP) should develop the Florida Coastal Issue Survey to elicit responses from Florida residents concerning this issue. A survey can gauge the general public’s opinions, attitudes, and knowledge concerning coastal issues. The FCMP should conduct an annual telephone survey of Florida’s adult population (ages 18 and over) to elicit responses concerning a variety of coastal management issues. The selection of the telephone numbers should be based on a two stage random digit dialing stratified by coastal and non-coastal county designation. The two stage process ensures a more random sample of residential households; the stratification ensures that the designated coastal and non-coastal counties will have an appropriate proportion of the sample. There should be two sections to the survey: the first section should contain general demographic questions about the respondent and the household (age, sex, income, # in household, zip code area, etc.); the second section should contain questions about coastal issues.
The survey should contain several questions asking the respondent:
The responses would be aggregated into an index to indicate overall level of preparedness of the respondent. A potential limitation of this information could be the accuracy of the responses: respondents’ answers concerning knowledge of evacuation and news information will not be checked against the actual designations and sources. This indicator would therefore be a measure of residents’ perceived hurricane preparedness and not necessarily their actual preparedness.