Searches Show Timeline for Evacuating Ahead of Hurricane Irma

It’s no surprise that there are a lot of keyword searches being performed for keywords related to Hurricane Irma. I’ve been following the trends of keywords related to Hurricane Irma, and have been able to see some interesting data from Google Trends. People are turning to the web, specifically Google, to help make up their decision on whether to evacuate or not, and get information about Hurricane Irma.

Keyword searches related to the hurricane that’s hitting the Caribbean, Florida, and then other States in the US continued to go up over the past few days, but it really got started around September 4th, at 2:00PM. On September 4th and 5th, the searches for related phrases began to ramp up, and people began to take it more seriously. Specifically for Hurricane Irma searches, the peak for that keyword phrase was September 6, 2017 at 8:00PM.

They then were looking for the “Hurricane Irma Track”, which peaked on September 6th, at 8:00PM.

However, the number of searches related to evacuating, leaving the potentially impacted areas in Florida, peaked at 9:00PM September 7th. It appears that at this point, as of this post, the number of people searching for “evacuate”, has now dropped off. Those contemplating evacuating away from Hurricane Irma have already searched and made a decision, most likely.

Google keyword searches, and the number of searches for certain keyword phrases, clearly define our thinking process around this event, Hurricane Irma. Based on the number of keyword searches, at certain times, we can concur that:

– September 4, 5, 6: Searches start trending for “Hurricane Irma”.
– September 7: Searches for “Hurricane Irma Track” peak
– September 7: Searches for “evacuate” peak.
– September 8: Searches for “evacuate” start to drop off.

Like I mentioned, the searches for Hurricane Irma started, then people were very interested and continued to be interested in the Hurricane Irma track. Then, at some point around September 7th, the evening of September 7th, they did their research online and searches and then decided to evacuate. So, as expected, on September 8th (as of writing of this post), I’m assuming they’re doing the evacuating now (which, based on news reports, they’re doing), so there are less searches for “evacuate”.

This is an ongoing event, so I will continue to update this post as warranted.