Why some people never evacuate during a hurricane, according to a psychologist

The forecast for Hurricane Florence is ominous.

Storm experts are projecting the storm will make a direct hit on the North Carolina shore, north of Wilmington, as a Category 3 storm. The National Hurricane Center says storm surge — which is often the deadliest component of a hurricane — could top 6-to-12 feet in some areas. Meanwhile, 15-to-20 inches of rain from the storm may cause flooding, both alongshore and inland.

Due to the severity of the forecast, more than 1.4 million people have been told they must evacuate from the shorelines of North and South Carolina, as well as parts of Virginia. Luckily, the worst of the storm won’t arrive until Friday, so there’s still time to prepare and leave

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During Hurricane Katrina, people who refused evacuation orders were cast in a negative light: as too lazy, too uniformed, or too self-centered to make the decision to leave. The decision to stay was framed as a negative choice. But those who made the decision to stay saw it completely differently.

That was the conclusion of a 2009 paper in Psychological Science. A group of researchers at Stanford and Princeton surveyed Hurricane Katrina survivors and people who were not in the storm’s path, asking them about their perception of the people who refused evacuation orders.

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