Which US states are most at risk during an emergency evacuation?

The US states of California, Florida, Arizona and Texas have emerged as the states with the greatest number of communities most at risk during an emergency evacuation.

Building on earlier research, which focused on the top 100 at-risk communities, the new report from mobility metrics company, StreetLight Data, includes analysis of some 670 communities across the continental US (48 states).

Remote communities

California and Florida, on the heels of a 2020 plagued by massive fires and the most active hurricane season on record, are the two states with the largest number of ‘remote’ communities identified by this analysis.

StreetLight’s methodology uses a mathematical algorithm that identifies town boundaries with too many people relative to the number of roads leading out of town.

The 10 states with the most communities at risk are:

1 California (91 communities)

2 Florida (62 communities)

3 Arizona (42 communities)

4 Texas (41 communities)

5 Pennsylvania (40 communities)

6 New York (31 communities)

7 Washington (30 communities)

8 West Virginia (28 communities)

9 Virginia (24 communities)

10 New Jersey (23 communities).

“As we head into peak season for wildfires and hurricanes, there is no better time to review emergency evacuation risk with the scale and granularity enabled by big data analytics,” said Paul Friedman, CTO of StreetLight and author of the study.

“Sharing information about transportation infrastructure and emergency route options is an important part of disaster preparedness. Our goal in sharing this data is to support those working in this complex field, especially as they look for ways to make our communities safer.”