Louisiana Highway Evacuation Plan for Hurricane Katrina: Proactive Management of a Regional Evacuation

This is a continuing series of quarterly articles on lessons learned and best practices in civil engineering education. The intent of the series is to reinforce good practices, describe new or developing practices, and provide a forum for what works well and what does not.Herbert S. LevinsonEditor, Practitioner’s ForumEffective evacuation plans for major natural disasters like Katrina and Rita are essential. The plans will vary with type and expected intensity of the disaster. The two forums that follow give differing perspectives on how well the plans for Katrina and Rita worked and set forth the lessons learned.The first forum, entitled “Louisiana Highway Evacuation Plan for Hurricane Katrina: Proactive Management of a Regional Evacuation,” written by Brian Wolshon, Alison Catarella-Michel, and Laurence Lambert, describes and assesses the Louisiana Highway Evacuation Plan. It gives the details of a bistate contra flow operation on key interstate highways.The second forum, entitled “Lessons from Katrina and Rita,” written by Todd Litman, examines the failures in the response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It cites some lessons learned and emphasizes the need for a more efficient and resilient multi-modal evacuation response strategy.