Rice U. expert available to discuss safe hurricane evacuations, returns

Rice University
Office of Public Affairs / News & Media Relations

EXPERT ALERT

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Rice U. expert available to discuss safe hurricane evacuations, returns

HOUSTON – (Sept. 13, 2018) – As Hurricane Florence approaches the Eastern Seaboard, Rice University urban politics expert Robert Stein is available to discuss safe evacuations and returns before and after hurricanes hit.

Stein is a co-author of “How to Evacuate Cities before Dangerous Hurricanes,”which will appear in the October 2018 issue of Scientific American. He said an often-overlooked aspect of the response to severe weather events such as hurricanes Harvey and Florence is organizing the return of evacuees to their homes.

“Timely, orderly and safe evacuations have to be managed but so too does the return to homes and the resumption of normal activities,” Stein said.

“There are many hazards and challenges that await persons who return to their homes, and we need warnings and recommendations to not return until all issues of safety are resolved by public officials,” he added.

Stein said mental health issues associated with recovery from natural disasters are also often overlooked.

“These issues are not as readily recognized as the physical harm to persons and property,” he said.

Rice University has a VideoLink ReadyCam TV interview studio. ReadyCam is capable of transmitting broadcast-quality standard-definition and high-definition video directly to all news media organizations around the world 24/7. Rice also has a university backdrop, 1080p web cam and light kit for Skype interviews.

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Related materials:

http://news.rice.edu/files/2018/08/robert-stein-10mjvo3.jpg
Photo credit: Rice University.

http://news.rice.edu/files/2018/09/NOAA-Florence-22xvlhq.png
Hurricane Florence photo by NOAA

Robert Stein bios:
https://politicalscience.rice.edu/robert-stein
https://www.bakerinstitute.org/experts/robert-m-stein/

This news release can be found online at http://news.rice.edu.

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Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,970 undergraduates and 2,934 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.