Why Don’t They Just Leave?

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I have heard versions of this question many times in the Dominican Republic when floods affect communities living along rivers. People know these areas are dangerous, the argument goes. They are warned when the river rises. Some have even been offered opportunities to relocate. So why stay? Why return?

For years, that question, and the assumptions behind it, have stayed with me.

I’m a sociologist from the Dominican Republic, and my interest in disaster risk began long before graduate school. Before coming to the University of Arizona, I worked on disaster risk reduction, humanitarian response, and community resilience projects in my home country. That work brought me into communities that are often talked about during disasters but not always listened to outside of them. The more I learned about people’s everyday realities, the more uncomfortable I became with the idea that staying in a risky place could simply be explained as a choice.

Later, when I returned to communities along the Ozama River in Santo Domingo Este for my master’s research, I had the opportunity to listen more closely. La Lata and Ribera del Ozama are communities located along the Ozama River, where many families live close to the river and nearby canals. During periods of heavy rain and tropical storms, water levels can rise quickly, bringing water into streets and homes and disrupting everyday life. For many residents, flooding is something they have experienced repeatedly and have learned to anticipate.

During one of my interviews in La Lata, Pedro, a community leader, captured this contradiction simply: “If we could leave, we would.”

The people I spoke with were very aware of the risk. They knew which areas flooded first. They watched the river and nearby canals when it rained. They remembered previous floods and knew when the water had reached a point where it was time to evacuate.

What they did not always have was somewhere else to go.

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Moving requires money. Many families have built their homes little by little over the years, adding rooms, reinforcing roofs, or raising floors as resources become available. Their families, jobs, and social networks are often nearby. Moving from an informal settlement into formal housing means taking on new expenses, from utilities and transportation to building maintenance. 

For Jennifer, a 29-year-old mother I interviewed, leaving was something she actively wanted. She was saving money to move because, as she told me, “I don’t want my daughter to grow up here.” Her concerns went beyond flooding, and spoke to privacy, safety, and the future she imagined for her daughter.

These conversations changed my questions. Instead of asking, “Why don’t people leave?” I began asking, “What choices are actually available?”

As I continued listening, I also began to see how much residents had learned about living with flood risk. Over the years, they had developed their own ways of reading the river, preparing for floods, and responding when they happened.

People in La Lata and Ribera del Ozama have developed detailed knowledge of the river through years of living alongside it. They monitor water levels and nearby canals, compare official forecasts with what they observe, communicate through neighbors and community networks, and know who may need help during an emergency. As one community leader explained, “We’ve lived here for many years, so we know the river.”

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That realization made me think differently about how we, as society, talk about communities living with flood risk. We often describe them in terms of what they lack: safe housing, infrastructure, resources, or access to information. Those challenges are very real. Focusing only on what is missing, however, can make it easy to overlook what residents already know. At the same time, knowledge has its limits. As another community leader told me, “You may know what to do, but without resources, you cannot act.”

My master’s research helped me understand how residents prepare for recurrent flooding and the role that local knowledge, community networks, and everyday observation play in that process. It also left me with new questions. What happens when what residents know from living with the river does not connect with the information and decisions coming from the institutions responsible for disaster risk management? What could change if residents had a more meaningful role in how flood risk is understood and managed?

Those questions are at the center of my CLIMAS fellowship project, Living with Flood Risk: Community Knowledge and Climate Adaptation in Santo Domingo Este. The project builds on what I learned during my master’s research. I am now focusing more closely on the relationship between community knowledge and the climate and disaster information shared by local institutions. I want to understand where these different ways of knowing connect, where gaps remain, and what those gaps mean for flood preparedness.

An important part of the fellowship will be bringing what I have learned back into conversation with community members and local disaster risk management actors. These conversations will allow me to explore how residents experience the information they receive, how their own knowledge is considered, and where there may be opportunities for more meaningful dialogue and participation.

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Community participation is especially important to me because the people who live with flood risk every day have experiences and knowledge that can contribute to the decisions that affect them. Their participation should go beyond receiving information. Creating space for their knowledge and perspectives can help us think about preparedness in ways that better reflect their everyday realities.

What excites me most is the opportunity to continue a project that began long before I called it research and to think about how this project can be useful beyond the university. Working with these communities first taught me to question simple explanations. Returning as a researcher taught me to listen differently. Now, this fellowship is giving me an opportunity to turn that listening into a deeper conversation.

Perhaps that is the biggest lesson I carry with me into this project. Before asking why people continue to live with risk, we should first ask what choices they actually have—and what we might learn by making space for the knowledge and voices of the people who navigate that risk every day.