Can you afford to evacuate ahead of a disaster?

Summary

Summary of "Can You Afford to Evacuate Ahead of a Disaster?"
The Indicator from Planet Money
Release Date: July 9, 2025
Host: Waylon Wong
Guest: Stephen Bes, Gulf States Newsroom

---

1. Introduction to Hurricane Season and Economic Impact

As hurricane season commences, the podcast highlights the severe dangers and economic ramifications associated with these natural disasters. Waylon Wong opens the discussion by referencing recent flash floods in Texas, which have tragically claimed at least 107 lives with many still missing (00:12). Stephen Bes underscores the extensive damage hurricanes can inflict on communities, citing Hurricane Helene’s impact on North Carolina, which alone resulted in nearly $80 billion in damages (00:24).

2. The Dilemma of Evacuation: Costs and Decisions

Evacuation emerges as a critical yet financially burdensome choice for those in the path of a storm. Wong introduces the concept of evacuation as a "gamble" that residents must make, weighing the immediate costs against potential long-term losses (00:37). Bes elaborates on the financial strain, noting that evacuation expenses can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, a trend that is exacerbating over time (00:48).

3. Personal Story: Nick Oquin’s Evacuation Experience

To humanize the issue, Wong shares the story of Nick Oquin, an accountant from New Orleans who evacuated to Alabama ahead of Hurricane Francine in September. Nick faced the tough decision of staying put despite the absence of an official evacuation order, fearing prolonged power outages that could jeopardize his family’s safety (02:31). He recounts the challenges of traveling with a young child and the financial implications of such a move.

Notable Quote:
Nick Oquin reflects on his experience, stating, “It is raining and it's been raining since I left my house” (02:57).

4. Escalating Evacuation Costs and Contributing Factors

Stephen Bes presents data from studies conducted by economist Paula Mazumder, revealing that evacuation costs have surged over the past decade. For instance, evacuations during Hurricanes Irma and Harvey in 2017 cost households between $1,500 and $3,000, a substantial increase even after adjusting for inflation (05:48). Key factors driving these costs include:

• Food Expenses: Nick’s account highlights that reliance on eating out during evacuation can quickly deplete budgets, with meals for a family of four averaging $50 each (04:06).

• Gas and Lodging: Increased demand for fuel and accommodation during evacuation periods leads to higher prices and limited availability (06:04).

• Duration of Evacuation: The length of time required to return home significantly impacts total expenses, as prolonged stays escalate costs (04:46).

5. Price Gouging and Legislative Challenges

The podcast addresses the issue of price gouging during evacuations, where essential goods and services become exorbitantly priced. Despite existing laws intended to curb such practices, enforcement remains problematic. For example, during Hurricane Harvey, Texas gas stations charged nearly $10 per gallon, only rectified two years later (06:55). Pahlib emphasizes the difficulty in enforcing these laws amidst chaotic evacuation scenarios, leaving consumers vulnerable to exploitation.

6. FEMA and Government Response

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) plays a pivotal role in disaster relief, but its efficiency has come under scrutiny. Historical audits, such as those following Hurricane Katrina, revealed significant wastage and inefficiency, prompting criticisms from various political figures, including President Trump, who has proposed phasing out FEMA (07:29). The Urban Institute’s analysis warns that transferring financial responsibilities to states could strain local resources and exacerbate post-disaster recovery challenges (07:59).

Notable Quote:
FEMA spokesperson Jeff Harbaugh acknowledges ongoing issues, stating, “FEMA has failed Americans for decades, and the federal government will shift to supporting state disaster response and preparations” (08:15).

7. Conclusions and Future Implications

The episode concludes by reflecting on the inevitability of evacuation costs as hurricane seasons intensify. Nick Oquin’s experience, with a relatively manageable evacuation cost of $505, is noted as somewhat fortunate due to his paternity leave and financial standing (09:18). However, for many, such expenses represent a significant financial burden, hinting at a future where evacuation may become a necessity rather than a luxury.

Notable Quote:
Stephen Bes emphasizes the broader economic impact, “With hurricane season continuing to intensify, that luxury may become more often a necessity, whether or not people can afford it” (09:40).

---

Key Takeaways:

• Rising Evacuation Costs: Evacuating from hurricanes is becoming increasingly expensive, driven by factors such as higher food and lodging costs, prolonged evacuation durations, and unpredictability of storms.

• Economic Strain on Households: Families like Nick Oquin’s may face significant financial strain during evacuations, with costs potentially reaching thousands of dollars.

• Regulatory Challenges: Efforts to prevent price gouging during evacuations are often ineffective, leaving evacuees vulnerable to inflated prices.

• Government Support Shortcomings: FEMA’s inefficiency and potential phase-out raise concerns about adequate disaster relief and financial support for affected individuals.

• Future Necessities: As hurricane seasons grow more volatile and destructive, evacuations may become a regular and financially burdensome necessity for many households.

This comprehensive discussion underscores the intricate balance between personal safety and economic feasibility during natural disasters, highlighting the urgent need for more effective policies and support systems to alleviate the financial burdens of evacuation.

Transcript

[NPR Host]

Npr.

[Waylon Wong]

We are just at the start of hurricane season and already we're seeing the danger and tragedy storms can cause. Flash floods in Texas have killed at least 107 people, with many more still missing.

[Stephen Bes]

Storms can also destroy people's homes and livelihoods. Take Hurricane Helene. That's a storm that slammed the Southeast, especially North Carolina Carolina last year. That storm alone caused nearly $80 billion in damages.

[Waylon Wong]

There's also another cost that comes that gets a lot less attention, a gamble that anyone in the path of a storm has to make, and that's whether or not to evacuate.

[Stephen Bes]

Evacuating can cost someone hundreds and in many cases thousands of dollars. And the bad news, that cost is only getting more expensive. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong and I'm here with friend of the show Stephen Bes from the Gulf States Newsroom. Welcome back, Stephen.

[Waylon Wong]

Always good to be with you, Waylon. And you know, we are actually just at the start of hurricane season, so on today's show, I'll bring you my conversation with an accountant who had to evacuate last fall to avoid Hurricane Francine. Plus, why evacuation costs in general are going up.

[Meta AI Ad]

This message comes from Meta AI. Meta AI is the personal AI to help you with whatever you need. Not only is Meta AI now an app, but it's also on the apps you already Love, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. Plus the Ray Ban Meta glasses. It's easy to access wherever you are throughout the day. Experience Meta's newest AI that's tailored to you by downloading the Meta AI app. Try the Meta AI app today on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

[Dell Technologies Ad]

This message comes from Dell Technologies. The Black Friday in July event from Dell Technologies is here with deals on tech like the Dell 14 plus featuring Intel Core Ultra processors starting at $699.99. Visit Dell.com deals this message comes from.

[Meta AI Ad]

NPR sponsor Capella University. With Capella's flexpath Learning format, you can set your own deadlines and learn on your schedule. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.

[Waylon Wong]

Edu Last September, Hurricane Francine made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane. Sustained winds were estimated at 100 mph and the hurricane was heading straight for New Orleans.

[Stephen Bes]

The city did not have an evacuation order, so people in New Orleans had to ask themselves a way too familiar question, stay or go?

[Waylon Wong]

Nick Oquin decided to go.

[Nick Oquin]

It is raining and it's been raining since I left my house.

[Waylon Wong]

Nick lives in New Orleans with his wife and two kids. One of them was just a month old at the time of the storm. And Nick was worried about them all being stuck in the city for days without power.

[Stephen Bes]

So Nick and his family loaded up the car to drive from New Orleans to Alabama. He agreed to give us real time updates. And we got our first video call from Nick about an hour or so into the drive.

[Waylon Wong]

I see a lot of smiles right now.

[Nick Oquin]

Yeah, well, that's why I waited to call you. They weren't smiles. About 30 minutes ago, Nick said the.

[Waylon Wong]

Kids were not fans of evacuation traffic.

[Stephen Bes]

Ugh. As someone who would just get carsick after one minute in the car, just like I can't imagine. So to calm down those backseat drivers, Nick paid for his first evacuation expense.

[Nick Oquin]

So far, the grapes at $3.99 a pound, we're pretty much a budget. A budget killer so far.

[Stephen Bes]

Okay, so first thing on the spreadsheet, grapes. Now, Nick is also an accountant, and he agreed to use his number crunching powers to help us track his evacuation expenses.

[Waylon Wong]

And grapes, really? Food in general was the first expense to consider.

[Nick Oquin]

We didn't really bring anything with us besides the car snacks. So we'll be eating out the entire time.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, and eating out these days can get pretty expensive.

[Nick Oquin]

Yeah, certainly, certainly. At minimum, 50 bucks a mealin.

[Waylon Wong]

I gotta say, for a family of four, 50 bucks a meal is pretty impressive.

[Stephen Bes]

Not so bad, right? I mean, I guess the baby probably isn't eating a lot of solid food at this point.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, not really ordering a lot off the fast food menu. Well, you know, the other expenses to consider are gas and a place to stay. Lost wages because of missed work time is also a big worry.

[Stephen Bes]

And the big multiplier on top of everything is how long an evacuation lasts.

[Nick Oquin]

That's the major factor to this entire. You know, the cost of this entire trip will be would be how long before the power is restored at my house.

[Stephen Bes]

Given all of that, Nick hoped the final cost would come in under $1,000.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, not a small amount of money. And the thing to know about evacuations is that you might need to do it more than once a year.

[Stephen Bes]

Right. Because hurricane season is long. Like consider possibly the most infamous hurricane, hurricane Katrina. Katrina may land Fond Louisiana 20 years ago as a Category 3 hurricane. And it was one of five major hurricanes that hit the Gulf coast that season.

[Waylon Wong]

Evacuating for every storm coming your way can be exhausting. That's what Paula Mazumder says. He's an economist at Florida International University.

[NPR Host]

Hurricane fatigue is a real thing. If you have two, three major hurricanes in the season. People really get tired.

[Stephen Bes]

Hollab studies hurricanes, including how much evacuations cost. He surveyed about 450 evacuees to get those costs. For both Hurricanes Irma and Harvey In.

[NPR Host]

2017, we found like $1,500 to $3,000. In that range.

[Waylon Wong]

That's $1,500 to $3 thousand dollars per household. That did not include lost wages. And on average, the evacuations lasted more than a week.

[Stephen Bes]

Those evacuations were also way more expensive compared to ones about a decade earlier, even after adjusting for inflation, like roughly four or five times higher, according to Pahlb.

[Waylon Wong]

Pahlib says one of the reasons evacuations are more expensive today is that it's gotten harder to predict what kind of storm you're going to get lately.

[NPR Host]

Hurricane is getting more complex. You know, it's telling you for a while that it's not coming on your way. And all of a sudden it probably.

[Stephen Bes]

Changed direction or the storm quickly intensifies. Like Hurricane Milton last year.

[NPR Host]

In less than 24 hours, it jumped from category one to five.

[Waylon Wong]

These fast growing storms can catch people off guard, and that leads to late evacuations, jammed up roads and packed hotels. And then there's the increased demand for lodging and gas. And of course, there's price gouging.

[Stephen Bes]

Now, there are supposed to be price gouging laws in states like Florida to protect against this. For example, in Texas, two gas stations were forced to refund customers for charging nearly $10 a gallon for gas during Hurricane Harvey.

[Waylon Wong]

But Pahlip says those laws are hard to enforce, especially during an evacuation. It took two years for Texas to hold those gas stations accountable.

[Stephen Bes]

Depending on the storm, FEMA can help cover some evacuation costs. FEMA is the federal government's disaster relief agency. And back during Katrina, FEMA gave $2,000 checks to evacuees.

[Waylon Wong]

But audits of FEMA's Katrina response did find millions of dollars were wasted due to things like fraud and overpaid hotel rooms. President Trump has appointed people critical of FEMA to run the agency, and they say it's become inefficient and wasteful.

[Stephen Bes]

Trump says he plans to phase out FEMA after this current hurricane season ends. He wants states to be the ones covering more of the costs. But an analysis from the Urban Institute found that would leave states with several financial challenges in the years after a disaster.

[Waylon Wong]

We asked FEMA for comment on what happens if states can't afford to cover disaster costs. We got an emailed statement from spokesperson Jeff Harbaugh saying FEMA has failed Americans for decades, and the federal government will shift to supporting state disaster response and preparations.

[Stephen Bes]

Paulip says he's not aware of any state programs that reimburse evacuation expenses. And he says whether it's the states or the feds, someone has to pick up the tab.

[NPR Host]

You can denied for a while, but it's basically a real tax on people. How do you want to finance? We can debate over it, but there is no way to avoid it.

[Waylon Wong]

Even when it comes to getting assistance from fema, the agency typically only helps with expenses directly caused by a declared disaster.

[Stephen Bes]

The White House declared last September's Hurricane Francine a disaster, but not in New Orleans. The worst of the damage was in the Louisiana bayou, not where Nick Oquin lives.

[Waylon Wong]

Hurricane Francine caused tens of thousands of people to lose power, but it ended up not being as bad a storm as some of the others from that year. And lots of people like Nick got power restored to their homes in just a few days. So he decided to drive back.

[Nick Oquin]

Hey Steve, we're back home on the couch.

[Stephen Bes]

The final total for his two day evacuation, $505.

[Waylon Wong]

Now Nick was also lucky because he was on paternity leave, so he didn't have to miss time from work. And he acknowledged he was in a place where 500 bucks wasn't much of a dent in his overall budget.

[Nick Oquin]

Not counting the school supplies that we bought while we were there.

[Waylon Wong]

Yeah, we could leave those out. You'd probably need to get those anyway.

[Nick Oquin]

Yes, yes. You know, evacuating is sort of a.

[Stephen Bes]

Luxury, but with hurricane season continuing to intensify, that luxury may become more often a necessity, whether or not people can afford it. This episode was produced by Corey Bridges with engineering by Robert Rodriguez. It was fact checked by Sarah Juarez and edited by Julia Ritchie. Our editor is Kate Concannon, and the indicator is a production of npr.

[Dell Technologies Ad]

This message comes from Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right. They offer premium wireless plans for less. And all plans include high speed data, unlimited talk and text and nationwide coverage. See for [e-mail] Switch this message comes.

[Meta AI Ad]

From NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years. Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off. Learn [e-mail] NPR this message comes from.

[Dell Technologies Ad]

NPR's sponsor, Thrive Market. Their biggest sale of the summer is on for a limited time. Get an extra 25% off low sugar snack packs and more. Go to thrivemarket.com podcast for 30% off your first order and a free $60 gift.