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Physical and Environmental Geography Commons™

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Selected Works

Jason L Simms

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical and Environmental Geography

Equally Unprepared: Assessing The Hurricane Vulnerability Of Undergraduate Students, Jason Simms, Margarethe Kusenbach, Graham Tobin Jun 2013

Equally Unprepared: Assessing The Hurricane Vulnerability Of Undergraduate Students, Jason Simms, Margarethe Kusenbach, Graham Tobin

Jason L Simms

Students have been described as being both particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and highly resilient in recovery. In addition, they often have been treated as a distinct, homogeneous group sharing similar characteristics. This research tests these ideas through an examination of hurricane-related perceptions and preparations of students in a hurricane-prone area. A survey of over 500 undergraduate students (15% on-campus residents, 85% off campus) was conducted at the University of South Florida, a large, metropolitan- based university located in Tampa Bay, Florida, near the Gulf Coast. Following Mann–Whitney and Kruskal– Wallis tests, results showed that students were ill prepared for …

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Disaster Vulnerability And Evacuation Readiness: Coastal Mobile Home Residents In Florida, Margarethe Kusenbach, Jason Simms, Graham Tobin Dec 2009

Disaster Vulnerability And Evacuation Readiness: Coastal Mobile Home Residents In Florida, Margarethe Kusenbach, Jason Simms, Graham Tobin

Jason L Simms

This article examines disaster preparedness in a highly vulnerable population, mobile home park residents in hurricane-prone areas. The vulnerabilities of this population mandate evacuation as the only viable disaster response strategy, but this does not always happen. In order to explore evacuation decision making, interviews were conducted with 75 mobile home park residents in Ruskin, Florida. Descriptive results build on a conceptualization of physical, structural, socio-economic, and ‘‘residual’’ disaster vulner- ability; the latter is defined as a combination of experiences, perceptions, and preparations that inhibit the willingness and abilities of respondents to protect themselves. While residents generally prepared for disasters, …

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