USA: Even after Hurricane Sandy, many people wouldn’t prepare before a future storm

By Nicole Wetsman

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But despite the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, many people in New Jersey do not plan to take active preparations if another storm approaches in the future. Burger and her colleagues surveyed New Jersey residents about their responses to the approaching storm back in 2012, and how they planned to prepare for another hypothetical storm—and their results, published this week in the journal Disasters, found that only around half of people said they planned to prepare in advance of the next storm, and 35 percent said that they would not make any preparations.

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Just over half of the study participants said that they would prepare for a future storm—but the actions that they said they would take to prepare ranged from simply gathering information to building an emergency kit. Around a quarter of the group that said they would prepare had no specific plans for how they would do so, and most people would only spring to action if a storm was on its way, not beforehand. People who had trouble accessing healthcare during Hurricane Sandy, though, were more likely than other groups to say that they were going to prepare for a future storm.

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