Disaster warnings offer critical lead time for preparation, but how people use it is shaped by their daily routines and demands. Although prior research has examined psychological and demographic vulnerabilities in disaster preparedness, the impact of time-poverty – especially during back-to-back disasters – has received little attention. As a result, some groups may experience heightened time stress, lack sufficient time to prepare, or even face increased safety risks. Thus, we conducted an in-depth investigation of time poverty and time use in hurricane preparation, focusing on Florida communities affected by at least one of the consecutive 2024 hurricanes, Helene and Milton. Using geographically targeted surveys from 1,069 hurricane-affected residents, we examined how time poverty, employment status, family responsibilities, and socio-economic vulnerability influenced time use, perceived time insufficiency, and time stress. Latent Class Analysis identified five routine time-poverty profiles, including Young Time-Balanced Workers, Time-Rich Retired, Affluent Professionals, Working Overloaded Caregivers, and Strained Low-Income Caregivers . Moderated regression analyses revealed that time-poor caregivers and busy professionals experienced significantly greater time stress and completed fewer preparations, while those with flexible routines reported less stress. We also found that perceived timely warnings alleviated time insufficiency, but this benefit diminished with the onset of the second hurricane. Despite less time spent on preparation and fewer uncompleted tasks, participants reported higher time stress for the second event. Our findings highlight the need for targeted, timely alerts and institutional measures, such as flexible work arrangements and caregivers support, to address structural time poverty and improve disaster readiness, especially under compound disasters.
Wang et al. (Sat,) studied this question.