Voices before the storm: pre-hurricane evacuation content

This study is an analysis of pre-hurricane evacuation messages in newspapers. The hurricanes were selected by choosing only category three or higher storms that made landfall along the Florida or Gulf Coast regions of the United States during the period of 2001-2005. The newspapers were selected because they were the nearest major local papers to where the hurricanes made landfall. The articles were analyzed to determine to what extent and in what ways newspapers meet their responsibility to warn people about significant hurricanes. Newspapers and the media in general accept their role of social responsibility by providing warnings against potentially life threatening events. While some of these warnings are more effective than others, there is still much room for improvement.