COMPLEX SYSTEMS SEMINAR<br>Weaving Technology into More Effective Hurricane Evacuations

Hurricane Katrina's human toll was heavily due to highly inefficient evacuation, with ten-hour+ short journeys, thousands unable to evacuate, and several hundred families unable to locate family members for up to ten days.  The New York area saw an incomplete, ill-coordinated Superstorm Sandy evacuation that failed in its handling of hospital patients and the elderly, yet was assisted by expectations of failure that led many tens of thousands to evacuate well before officials called for an evacuation.

Carefully combining existing technologies can do much better, through real-time narrowcasted advice and advance database and databank building. I describe the outlines and interweaving of such a system, and the role of game theory.