Instrumental Reasons

Shelter (N = 73) “They said go to Texas but I didn’t know anybody in Texas.” “Really truly, we had cars, but we didn’t know anybody to go to.” “People think when you run to the projects you’re more safer there than here, so that’s what basically we did.”

Transportation (N = 112) “I mean, if you’ve got 20 people trying to get in 1 car it’s not going to happen. So some people, you just stay because you have to.” “They would have had to send buses like close up to the door so they get [the elderly] out, because some people ain’t going to go out, you know, walking.”

Money, property, jobs (N = 109) “They were already robbing. And my dad, he had to stay behind because we had a lot of tools and belongings there.”

Health (N = 29) “I no healthy to drive too far.” “I take so much medication by that time I was like groggy.”

Social networks (N = 106) “The older people are really hard to leave because they’ve been through [Hurricanes] Betsy and Camille. So it’s very hard for you to get older people to leave.” “Like my mom said, she’s been through Betsy, Camille, all the hurricanes, the major hurricanes and she just wasn’t evacuating. So I wasn’t going to leave my mom to stay there by herself.” “I had a 90-year-old mother that I was taking care of and she would not leave that house for hell or high water.” “I could have made it on my own, but it was just my aunt and my uncle. Every few steps he made . . . she forgot his walker . . . every few steps he made he was falling down.”

Cognitive reasons

Sources, timing, and understanding of messages (N = 286) “Some was telling us that we should evacuate . . . and some of them was telling us to stand by.” “They said we don’t know what’s going to happen, but there’s slight chance everybody should leave New Orleans.” “All we heard was what was broadcast on television telling everybody that if they have somewhere to go, get out as soon as possible.” “In order for them to make a mandatory evacuation, it had to be a bad, very bad storm coming our way.”

Risk perception (N = 188) “And, well, we didn’t take it seriously. Because we thought it was going to be another Betsy. You know, with a little water coming in the house.” “The last storm we had there, it was more people got hurt on the highway traveling away from the storm, running out of gas, accidents, than it would have been if they stayed home.” “The water started to rise due to that breech in the levee system. That’s what caused that water, not the hurricane.”

Sociocultural reasons (N = 102) “The mayor, the governor of New Orleans, that run the city of New Orleans they let the waters go in the poor neighborhoods and kept it out of the rich neighborhoods like that French Quarter where tourists goes at.” “It was from them opening flood gates, telling lies about the levee breaking and stuff . . . I believe they do these things intentionally . . . so they can flood out those black neighborhoods.”

N = Number of coded statements.