A plea for help is seen on the roof of a home flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana September 4, 2005.
(Reuters) – Would more residents of New Orleans have evacuated ahead of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 if it had been named Kurt?
A study published on Monday suggests they would have, perhaps reducing Katrina’s death toll of more than 1,800.
Because people unconsciously think a storm with a female name is less dangerous than one with a masculine name, those in its path are less likely to flee, and are therefore more vulnerable to harm.
As a result, strong Atlantic hurricanes with the most feminine names caused an estimated five times more deaths than those with the most masculine names, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign wrote in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.