Microsimulation of Hurricane Evacuation Strategies of Galveston Island

This article investigates the effectiveness of simultaneous and staged evacuation strategies for hurricane evacuations of Galveston Island using agent-based microsimulation techniques. In the simultaneous strategy the entire population is informed to evacuate simultaneously, whereas in a staged evacuation strategy, people are informed to evacuate in a sequence. The results suggest that (1) the most efficient staged evacuation strategy can help reduce the evacuation time for Galveston Island by approximately one hour, (2) previous studies might have underestimated the evacuation time of Galveston, and (3) an evacuation under the rapid response assumption does not necessarily lead to an effective evacuation.