Transport and Evacuation Networks in Emergent Disaster Response

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Emergent disaster response often depends on improvised transport and evacuation networks. Boats, private vehicles, volunteer drivers, dispatch lines, and ad hoc routing systems move people, meals, and supplies when formal transport infrastructures are impaired or too slow [@kendrawachtendorf2006sensemaking; @watters2014].

Improvised evacuation

Kendra and Wachtendorf’s account of the waterborne evacuation of Lower Manhattan shows how an improvised fleet can become a practical collective solution in the absence of prior planning [@kendrawachtendorf2006sensemaking]. The significance of the case is not only that boats moved people. It is that movement was coordinated through distributed judgment and rapidly evolving norms rather than a single command hierarchy.

Evacuation on emsenn.net

Transport and Evacuation Networks in Emergent Disaster Response

Improvised evacuation