Economic analysis of in-residence hurricane sheltering

By increasing occupant safety and sense of security, in-residence hurricane shelters can reduce the proportion of coastal area residents that evacuate under threat of windstorm. Reductions in the number of evacuees can provide significant economic benefits to regions subject to hurricane. These economic benefits are both direct and indirect, private and public in nature. This paper presents a methodology for economic analysis of in-residence hurricane shelters. Its primary focus is on the benefit side of the benefit-cost ledger since a broad economic approach to benefits is least developed in the engineering literature. Given reliable estimates of expected benefits from in-residence shelters, a complete cost-benefit analysis can be obtained.