This year’s hurricane season has been quiet so far, but if and when it cranks up many American cities won’t be prepared to execute mass evacuations, a new study finds.
After Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans in 2005, the country bore witness to the pitfalls of not having an effective evacuation plan. Since then only marginal improvements have been made in the 50 largest U.S. cities, researchers report.
For the study, they reviewed city emergency plans from the time frame after Katrina and before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The researchers scored the 50 cities based on a rating system that includes four designations: weak, 0-4 points; moderate, 5-7 points; strong, 8-10 points; and N/A, plans that were not reviewed….