The timing of and message conveyed by warnings about extreme events are critical to when and how people respond. The research on warnings addresses such topics as who responds and under what circumstances, and who does not respond appropriately. Yet, it has been difficult to generalize the findings of this research because of different characteristics of the populations and/or on the events studied. The work reported here looks at two different events (a hurricane and a flood) in two different locations (Charlotte County, FL and Broome County, NY) in an attempt to understand what influenced people's decisions to stay to leave and the role that the warnings, as they were presented, may have played in these decisions. The lessons derived from this work have implications for the warning process with respect to lead times, reaching those a greatest risk, message content, particularly with respect to communicating uncertainty.