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Hurricane Harvey
Who left, where did they go, and who stayed?
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Estimated to be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, Hurricane Harvey left many people with a difficult decision: should I leave my home or wait out the storm?
With numerous warnings from local and federal agencies, thousands chose to heed hurricane advisories and evacuate their homes.
Three main questions about movement arise when thinking about evacuations:
1. Where did people leave?
2. Where did people go?
3. And who decided to stay?
Utilizing Teralytics data aggregated from billions of signals obtained daily from cell towers and other unique sources, Esri created a map that attempts to answer these three questions.
The Map
Orange diamonds represent areas where people evacuated.
For example, at the heart of Houston (shown in the pop-up to the right) around 10,000 people left the area before the hurricane hit land leaving only 12,838 people, nearly a 50% decrease in population.
The purple circles represent areas where people arrived.
This area highlighted by the pop-up on the left grew by almost 15,000 people in one week.
The gray polygons represent 100-year flood plains. Notice how most of the people in flood plains evacuated to places outside the flood zone (orange diamonds are in floodplains while many purple circles are not).
Blue squares represent areas where the population was the same the week before and during the hurricane. It is a close representation of where people decided to stay, either waiting out the storm or unable to afford relocation.
Notice how these areas tend to be in the outskirts of major cities such as San Antonio and Houston.
Learn more about shelter location, hours, and website by clicking on the home symbols.