Scientists in Georgia are using virtual reality to combat that.
In 2022, 41 people died because of storm surge from Hurricane Ian. And in 2016, drowning was the most common cause of death in North Carolina where 23 people died during Hurricane Matthew. Between 1963 and 2012, storm surge was responsible for half of deaths from Atlantic tropical cyclones in the United States, according to a National Hurricane Center study.
Last week, a team of human behavior scientists and researchers from virtual reality labs at the University of Georgia and Clemson University unveiled a virtual reality experience that simulates storm surge creeping into a coastal home during a tropical storm. They called it "Weather the Storm."
They hope the 15 minute interactive simulation will encourage coastal residents to evacuate after orders are given from local officials, potentially saving lives of those who may have otherwise stayed behind.
"Weather the Storm can be a powerful way for the general public to take preparations seriously, allowing people to truly experience the dangers of storm surge before it's too late," said Matthew Browning, associate professor at Clemson University and co-director of the Virtual Reality & Nature Lab.
Over 25 iterations of this simulation have been made since the research team started this project in 2017, thanks to a $500,000 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant.
"Nothing like this has ever been done before," said Sun Joo "Grace" Ahn, professor at UGA's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and Director of the Center For Advanced Computer Human Ecosystem. She led this study alongside Browning and other research team members.
Ahn and her team believe people often feel the government is crying wolf when giving evacuation orders from hurricanes, and people who have been through multiple hurricanes become "desensitized" to the threats.
Ahn said the "visceral experience" that VR offers could change that.
"In evacuation situations, a lot of people tend to feel psychologically safe in their own home because it's a familiar four walls," she said. "Yes, there are FEMA flood maps, and yes, there are websites dedicated to hurricane dangers and what to do when you're supposed to evacuate, but it's really hard to understand that abstract information for regular, everyday people without actually going through it."
When a user puts on a VR headset, which must be a Meta Quest 1st through 3rd gen for this experience, they find themselves inside a coastal home and start to see and hear windows crack and break, and strong winds rush water into their home, lifting furniture. Users watch as waves get higher and higher above their head.
But Ahn and her team don't want to leave the user with fear. After capturing their attention, they want to demonstrate how to prepare by sharing evacuation steps that require interaction.
"Part one is a threat, part two is self-efficacy," she said.
The hand remotes connected to the VR headset need to be used to pack an evacuation bag, prep your home by boarding up windows, and check to see if there is gas in your car, Ahn said. It's fully interactive, you have to board up the window and it's part of experiential and active learning.
She called it making a "mental map" of what to do virtually before it happens in the real world.
Community resilience and rising seas
This project was created to offer more resilience to coastal communities. Who better to ask to help test its efficacy than those communities?
Participants included local government officials, engineers, students, and community leaders on the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, where the other research team members (South Carolina Sea Grant and Georgia Sea Grant) are based.
University students from across the Southeast provided feedback at the annual South Carolina Beach Advocates meeting.
One, a hydrology engineer student, described their "lizard brain" kicking in as water levels rose. Another graduate student said while they knew it was VR, it was still "freaky."
Jill Gambill, executive director and senior research associate of the Coastal Equity and Resilience Hub at Georgia Tech, studies sea level rise in Georgia very closely.
She said the risks increase further inland from more flooding caused by rising sea levels.
"Sea-level-rise is raising the launching point for storm surge during hurricanes," Gambill said in an email. "As sea levels continue to rise, more people and properties will be at risk, along coastal communities."
Sea level is rising from human-caused climate change. In 2022, the U.S. Sea Level Change report said that melting from glaciers, and changing ocean circulation and temperatures, are supposed to cause anywhere from 10-18 inches of sea level rise over the next 30 years along the Gulf and East Coast of the U.S.
"By 2050, the expected relative sea level will cause tide and storm surge heights to increase and will lead to a shift in U.S. coastal flood regimes, with major and moderate high tide flood events occurring as frequently as moderate and minor high tide flood events occur today," the report said.
The report specifically cited the need to halt more greenhouse gas emissions that cause planetary warming and add to rising seas. From the industrial revolution's emissions to today, the locked in sea level rise will get up to 2 feet by 2100, the report described.
"Failing to curb future emissions could cause an additional 1.5 to 5 feet of rise, for a total of 3.5 to 7 feet," the report said.
Who will experience this?
The VR creators hope emergency management groups try this model out, but anyone who owns a Meta Quest headset has access to the video. It can also be downloaded by teachers on the Weather the Storm website for K-12 classes that don't have VR or accessed at libraries.
Ahn said most public libraries have VR headsets and citizen scientists can and should use them. She said her team has plans to partner with public libraries to see this through.
The National Hurricane Center has already agreed to integrate the VR experience into their existing training program, Ahn said. Insurance companies have started reaching out to Ahn because they're interested in educating building managers, she said.
For groups who are interested to try this out, like teachers or emergency managers, and can't afford the $250 or $500 headsets, Ahn said they can try out the UGA's Center For Advanced Computer Human Ecosystem headsets through their loan program and get up to 10 devices shipped at once.
The next steps for Ahn's team is checking website traffic to see if people are using it, scaling it up, acquiring data to make sure it's scientifically rigorous.
During preliminary testing in the first few years of the study Ahn said, "we hit a chord, a resonating response."
"...it might be very difficult for people to take a pamphlet on this topic and be interested, but once they tried out virtual reality, they couldn't wait to talk."
© 2025 the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus, Ga.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
