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Assessing Community Impacts of Natural Disasters
Michael K. Lindell1and Carla S. Prater2
Abstract: Research on the community impacts of natural disasters has yielded a wide variety of findings, but no coherent model of the
process by which hazard agent characteristics produce physical and social impacts. This article summarizes the principal features of this
process and describes the ways in which hazard mitigation and emergency preparedness practices can limit the physical impacts and the
ways in which community recovery resources and extra-community assistance can reduce social impacts.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲1527-6988共2003兲4:4共176兲
CE Database subject headings: Disasters; Social impact; Remedial action; Emergency services; Hurricanes; Earthquakes; Floods.
Introduction
A natural disaster occurs when an extreme geological, meteoro-
logical, or hydrological event exceeds the ability of a community
to cope with that event. Assessing the community impacts of
natural disasters is important for three reasons. First, such infor-
mation is useful to community leaders after a disaster strikes so
they can determine if there is a need for external assistance and, if
so, how much. Second, information about disaster impacts can be
used to identify specific segments of the community that have
been affected disproportionately 共e.g., low-income households,
ethnic minorities, or specific types of businesses兲or might be
affected in the future. Third, planners can develop disaster impact
projections before disasters strike to assess potential conse-
quences of alternative hazard adjustments. Unfortunately, it turns
out that the assessment of disaster impacts is a complex process
because, as Fig. 1 indicates, the effects of the hazard agent char-
acteristics on the disaster’s physical impacts depend upon the
affected community’s hazard mitigation practices and its emer-
gency preparedness practices because both of these can reduce
the physical impacts of the hazard agent. The physical impacts, in
turn, cause the disaster’s social impacts but these can be reduced
by community recovery resources and extra-community assis-
tance. The following sections describe the components of the
model in greater detail.
Components of the Model
Hazard Agent Characteristics
There is a long history of interest in defining hazard agents such
as hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods in terms of specific char-
acteristics 共for reviews, see Dynes 1970; Cvetkovich and Earle
1985; Lindell and Perry 1992兲. Hazard impacts often are difficult
to characterize because a given hazard agent may initiate a num-
ber of different threats. For example, tropical cyclones 共also
known as hurricanes or typhoons兲can cause casualties and dam-
age through wind, rain, storm surge, and inland flooding 共Bryant
1991兲. Volcanoes can impact human settlements through ash fall,
explosive eruptions, lava flows, mudflows and floods, and forest
fires 共Warrick et al. 1981; Saarinen and Sell 1985; Perry and Lin-
dell 1990兲. Nonetheless, the most significant characteristics for
assessing a disaster’s impacts are its speed of onset and availabil-
ity of perceptual cues 共such as wind, rain, or ground movement兲,
the intensity, scope, and duration of impact, and the probability of
occurrence. The speed of onset and availability of perceptual cues
affect the amount of forewarning that affected populations will
have to complete emergency response actions 共Lindell 1994兲.In
turn, these attributes determine the extent of casualties among the
population and the degree of damage to structures in the affected
area.
The impact intensity of a natural hazard generally can be de-
fined in terms of the physical materials involved and the energy
these materials impart. The physical materials involved in disas-
ters differ in terms of their physical state—gas 共or vapor兲, liquid,
or solid 共or particulate兲. In most cases, the hazard from a gas
arises from its temperature or pressure. Examples include hurri-
cane or tornado wind 共recall that the atmosphere is a mixture of
gases兲, which is hazardous because of overpressures that can in-
flict traumatic injuries directly on people. High wind also is haz-
ardous because it can destroy structures and accelerate debris that
can itself cause traumatic injuries. Alternatively, the hazard from
a gas might arise from its toxicity, as is the case in some volcanic
eruptions. Liquids also can be hazardous because of their toxicity
but the most common liquid hazard is water, which is hazardous
to structures because of the pressure it can exert and is hazardous
to living things when it fills the lungs and prevents respiration.
Lava is solid rock that has been liquefied by extreme heat and
therefore is hazardous to people and structures because of its
thermal energy. Solids also can be hazardous if they take the form
of particulates such as airborne volcanic ash or floodborne mud.
These are particularly significant because they can leave deposits
that have impacts of long duration.
The scope of impact defines the number of affected social
units 共e.g., individuals, households, and businesses兲. The prob-
ability of occurrence 共per unit of time兲is another important char-
1Director, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, 3137 TAMU,
Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX 77843-3137. E-mail:
mlindell@archone.tamu.edu
2Research Scientist, Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center, 3137
TAMU, Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX 77843-3137.
Note. Discussion open until April 1, 2004. Separate discussions must
be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by one
month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing Editor.
The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and possible
publication on February 14, 2002; approved on January 16, 2003. This
paper is part of the Natural Hazards Review, Vol. 4, No. 4, November 1,
2003. ©ASCE, ISSN 1527-6988/2003/4-176–185/$18.00.
176 / NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW © ASCE / NOVEMBER 2003
acteristic of natural hazards, but this affects disaster impacts in-
directly because more probable hazards are likely to mobilize
communities to engage in hazard mitigation and emergency pre-
paredness measures to reduce their vulnerability 共Prater and Lin-
dell 2000兲.
Physical Impacts of Disasters
The physical impacts of disasters include casualties 共deaths and
injuries兲and property damage, and both vary substantially across
hazard agents. According to Noji 共1997兲, hurricanes produced 16
of the 65 greatest disasters of the 20th Century 共in terms of
deaths兲and the greatest number of deaths from 1947 to 1980
共499,000兲. Earthquakes produced 28 of the greatest disasters and
450,000 deaths, whereas floods produced four of the greatest di-
sasters and 194,000 deaths. Other significant natural hazards in-
clude volcanic eruptions with nine of the greatest disasters and
9,000 deaths, landslides with four of the greatest disasters and
5,000 deaths, and tsunamis with three of the greatest disasters and
5,000 deaths. There is significant variation by country, with de-
veloping countries in Asia, Africa, and South America accounting
for the top 20 positions in terms of number of deaths from 1966 to
1990. Low-income countries suffer approximately 3,000 deaths
per disaster whereas the corresponding figure for high-income
countries is approximately 500 deaths per disaster. Moreover,
these disparities appear to be increasing because the average an-
nual death toll in developed countries declined by at least 75%
between 1960 and 1990, but the same time period saw increases
of over 400% in developing countries 共Berke 1995兲.
There often are difficulties in determining how many of the
deaths and injuries are ‘‘due to’’ a disaster. In some cases it is
impossible to determine how many persons are missing and, if so,
whether this is due to death or unrecorded relocation. The size of
the error in estimates of disaster death tolls can be seen in the fact
that for many of the most catastrophic events the number of
deaths is rounded to the nearest thousand and some even are
rounded to the nearest ten thousand 共Noji 1997兲. Estimates of
injuries are similarly problematic 关see Langness 共1994兲; Peek-Asa
et al. 共1998兲; and Shoaf et al. 共1998兲regarding conflicting esti-
mates of deaths and injuries attributable to the Northridge earth-
quake兴. Even when bodies can be counted, there are problems
because disaster impact may be only a contributing factor to ca-
sualties with preexisting health conditions. Moreover, some casu-
alties are indirect consequences of the hazard agent as, for ex-
ample, with casualties caused by structural fires following
earthquakes 共e.g., burns兲and destruction of infrastructure 共e.g.,
illnesses from contaminated water supplies兲.
Losses of structures, animals, and crops also are important
measures of physical impacts, and these are rising exponentially
in the United States 共Mileti 1999兲, but the rate of increase is even
greater in developing countries such as India and Kenya 共Berke
1995兲. Such losses usually result from physical damage or de-
struction, but they also can be caused by other losses of use such
as chemical or radiological contamination, or loss of the land
itself to subsidence or erosion. Damage to the built environment
can be classified broadly as affecting residential, commercial, in-
dustrial, infrastructure, or community services sectors. Moreover,
damage within each of these sectors can be divided into damage
to structures and damage to contents. It usually is the case that
damage to contents results from collapsing structures 共e.g., hurri-
cane winds failing the building envelope and allowing rain to
destroy the contents兲. Because collapsing buildings are a major
cause of casualties as well, this suggests that strengthening the
structure will protect the contents and occupants. However, some
hazard agents can damage building contents without affecting the
structure itself 共e.g., earthquakes striking seismically resistant
buildings whose contents are not securely fastened兲. Thus risk
area residents may need to adopt additional hazard adjustments to
protect contents and occupants even if they already have struc-
tural protection.
As is the case with estimates of casualties, estimates of losses
to the built environment are prone to error. Damage estimates are
most accurate when trained damage assessors enter each building
to assess the percent of damage to each of the major structural
systems 共e.g., roof, walls, floors兲and the percentage reduction in
market valuation due to the damage. Early approximate estimates
are obtained by conducting ‘‘windshield surveys’’ in which
trained damage assessors drive through the impact area and esti-
mate the extent of damage that is visible from the street, or by
conducting computer analyses using HAZUS 共National Institute of
Building Sciences 1998兲. These early approximate estimates are
especially important in major disasters because detailed assess-
ments are not needed in the early stages of disaster recovery and
the time required to conduct them on a large number of damaged
structures using a limited number of qualified inspectors would
unnecessarily delay the community recovery process.
Other important physical impacts include damage or contami-
nation to cropland, rangeland, and woodlands. Such impacts may
be well understood for some hazard agents but not others. For
example, ashfall from the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption was ini-
tially expected to devastate crops and livestock in downwind
areas but no significant losses materialized 共Warrick et al. 1981兲.
There also is concern about damage or contamination to the natu-
ral environment 共wild lands兲because these areas serve valuable
functions such as damping the extremes of river discharge and
providing habitat for wildlife. In part, concern arises from the
potential for indirect consequences such as increased runoff and
silting of downstream river beds, but many people also are con-
cerned about the natural environment simply because they value it
for its own sake.
Hazard Mitigation Practices
One way to reduce the physical impacts of disasters is to adopt
hazard mitigation practices. These can be defined as preimpact
actions that protect passively against casualties and damage at the
time of hazard impact 共as opposed to an active emergency re-
sponse兲and include community protection works, land use prac-
tices, and building construction practices 共Lindell and Perry
2000兲. Community protection works, which limit the impact of a
hazard agent on the entire community, include dams and levees
that protect against floodwater and sea walls that protect against
storm surge. Land use practices reduce hazard vulnerability by
avoiding construction in areas that are susceptible to hazard im-
Fig. 1. Model of community disaster impacts
NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW © ASCE / NOVEMBER 2003 / 177
pact. Government agencies can encourage the adoption of appro-
priate land use practices by establishing regulations that prevent
development in hazardous locations, providing incentives that en-
courage development in safe locations, or informing landowners
about the risks and benefits of development in locations through-
out the community. Finally, hazard mitigation can be achieved
through building construction practices that make individual
structures less vulnerable to natural hazards. Such construction
practices include elevating structures out of flood plains, design-
ing structures to respond more effectively to lateral stresses, and
providing window shutters to protect against wind pressure and
debris impacts.
Emergency Preparedness Practices
Another way to reduce a disaster’s physical impacts is to adopt
emergency preparedness practices, which can be defined as pre-
impact actions that provide the human and material resources
needed to support active responses at the time of hazard impact
共Lindell and Perry 2000兲. The first step in emergency prepared-
ness is to identify the demands that a disaster of a given magni-
tude would place upon the community. These demands can be
met by performing four basic emergency response functions:
emergency assessment, expedient hazard mitigation, population
protection, and incident management 共Lindell and Perry 1992,
1996兲. Emergency assessment consists of those actions that define
the potential scope of the disaster impacts 共e.g., projecting hurri-
cane wind speed兲, expedient hazard mitigation consists of short-
term actions that protect property 共e.g., sandbagging around struc-
tures兲, population protection actions protect people from impact
共e.g., warning and evacuation兲, and incident management actions
activate and coordinate the emergency response 共e.g., communi-
cation among responding agencies兲. The next step is to determine
which community organization will be responsible for accom-
plishing each function 共Federal Emergency Management Agency
1996兲. Once functional responsibilities have been assigned, each
organization must develop procedures for accomplishing those
functions. Finally, the organizations must acquire response re-
sources 共personnel, facilities, and equipment兲to implement their
plans and they need to maintain preparedness for emergency re-
sponse through continued planning, training, drills, and exercises
共Daines 1991兲.
Social Impacts of Disaster
Social impacts, which include psychosocial, sociodemographic,
socioeconomic, and sociopolitical impacts, can develop over a
long period of time and can be difficult to assess when they occur.
Despite the difficulty in measuring these social impacts, it is
nonetheless important to monitor them because they can cause
significant problems for the long-term functioning of specific
types of households and businesses in an affected community. A
better understanding of disasters’ social impacts can provide a
basis for preimpact prediction and the development of contin-
gency plans to prevent adverse consequences from occurring.
For many years, research on the social impacts of disasters
consisted of an accumulation of case studies, but two research
teams conducted comprehensive statistical analyses of extensive
databases to assess the long-term effects of disasters on stricken
communities 共Friesma et al. 1979; Wright et al. 1979兲. The more
comprehensive Wright et al. 共1979兲study used census data from
the 1960 共preimpact兲and 1970 共postimpact兲censuses to assess
the effects of all recorded disasters in the United States. The
authors concurred with earlier findings by Friesma et al. 共1979兲in
concluding that no long-term social impact of disasters could be
detected at the community level. In discussing their findings, the
authors acknowledged that their results were dominated by the
types of disasters that occur most frequently in the United States:
tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes. Moreover, most of the disasters
they studied had a relatively small scope of impact and thus
caused only minimal disruption to their communities even in the
short term. Finally, they noted that their findings did not preclude
the possibility of significant long-term impacts upon lower levels
such as the neighborhood, business, and household.
Nonetheless, their findings called attention to the importance
of the impact ratio—the amount of damage divided by the
amount of community resources—in understanding disaster im-
pacts. They hypothesized that long-term social impacts tend to be
minimal because most hazard agents have a relatively small scope
of impact and tend to strike undeveloped areas more frequently
than intensely developed areas simply because there are more of
the former than the latter. Thus the numerator of the impact ratio
tends to be low and local resources are sufficient to prevent long-
term effects from occurring. Even when a hazard agent has a large
scope of impact and strikes a large developed area 共causing a
large impact ratio in the short term兲, state and federal agencies,
and nongovernmental organizations 共e.g., American Red Cross兲
direct recovery resources to the affected area, thus preventing
long-term impacts from occurring. For example, Hurricane An-
drew inflicted $26.5 billion in losses to the Miami area, but this
was only 0.4% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product 共Charve
´riat
2000兲. The recovery problems described by Peacock et al. 共1997兲
were determined more by organizational impediments than by the
unavailability of resources.
The findings of Wright et al. 共1979兲and Friesma et al. 共1979兲
made major contributions to theory and policy, but they left some
important questions unanswered. First, are there long-term social
impacts that are not measured by census data? Second, does the
absence of net effects obscure the presence of significant distribu-
tive effects? That is, do ‘‘winners’’ such as construction contrac-
tors that profit from the reconstruction offset ‘‘losers’’ such as
those who have suffered the devastation of their homes and per-
sonal belongings. Third, what are the implications for catastrophic
disasters of findings derived from small-scale disasters? Fourth, to
what extent can these findings be generalized from the United
States to other countries having less wealth or smaller size? Many
of these questions were addressed in subsequent studies described
below.
Psychosocial Impacts
One type of social impact not measured by census data consists of
psychosocial impacts and, indeed, research reviews conducted
over a period of 25 years have concluded that disasters can cause
a wide range of negative psychosocial responses 共Perry and Lin-
dell 1978; Bolin 1985; Houts et al. 1988; Gerrity and Flynn
1997兲. These include psychophysiological effects such as fatigue,
gastrointestinal upset, and tics, as well as cognitive signs such as
confusion, impaired concentration, and attention deficits. Psycho-
social impacts include emotional signs such as anxiety, depres-
sion, and grief, as well as behavioral effects such as sleep and
appetite changes, ritualistic behavior, and substance abuse. In
most cases, the effects that are observed are mild and transitory—
the result of ‘‘normal people, responding normally, to a very ab-
normal situation’’ 共Gerrity and Flynn 1997, p. 108兲. Few disaster
victims require psychiatric diagnosis and most benefit more from
178 / NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW © ASCE / NOVEMBER 2003
a ‘‘crisis counseling’’ orientation than from a ‘‘mental health
treatment’’ orientation, especially if their normal social support
networks of friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers remain
largely intact. However, there are population segments that re-
quire special attention and active outreach. These include chil-
dren, frail elderly, people with preexisting mental illness, racial
and ethnic minorities, and families of those who have died in the
disaster. Emergency workers also need special attention because
they often work long hours without rest, have witnessed horrific
sights, and are members of organizations in which discussion of
emotional issues may be regarded as a sign of weakness 共Rubin
1991兲.
The negative psychosocial impacts described above, which
Lazarus and Folkman 共1984兲call ‘‘emotion-focused coping’’ re-
sponses, generally disrupt the social functioning of only a very
small portion of the victim population. Instead, the majority of
disaster victims engage in adaptive ‘‘problem-focused coping’’
activities to save their own lives and those of their closest asso-
ciates. Further, there is an increased incidence in prosocial behav-
iors such as donating material aid and a decreased incidence of
antisocial behaviors such as crime 共Mileti et al. 1975; Drabek
1986; Siegel et al. 1999兲. In some cases, people even engage in
altruistic behaviors that risk their own lives to save the lives of
others 共Tierney et al. 2001兲.
There also are psychosocial impacts with long-term adaptive
consequences, such as changes in risk perception 共beliefs in the
likelihood of the occurrence of a disaster and its personal conse-
quences for the individual兲and increased hazard intrusiveness
共frequency of thought, discussion, and information receipt about a
hazard兲. In turn, these beliefs can affect risk area residents’ adop-
tion of household hazard adjustments that reduce their vulnerabil-
ity to future disasters. However, these cognitive impacts of disas-
ter experience do not appear to be large in aggregate—resulting in
modest effects on household hazard adjustment 关see Lindell and
Perry 共2000兲for a review of the literature on seismic hazard ad-
justment, and Lindell and Prater 共2000兲and Lindell and Whitney
共2000兲for more recent empirical research兴.
Sociodemographic Impacts
Perhaps the most significant sociodemographic impact of a disas-
ter on a stricken community is the destruction of households’
dwellings. Such an event initiates what can be a very long process
of disaster recovery for some population segments. According to
Quarantelli 共1982兲, people typically pass through four stages of
housing recovery following a disaster. The first stage is emer-
gency shelter, which consists of unplanned and spontaneously
sought locations that are intended only to provide protection from
the elements. The next step is temporary shelter, which includes
food preparation and sleeping facilities that usually are sought
from friends and relatives or are found in commercial lodging,
although ‘‘mass care’’ facilities in school gymnasiums or church
auditoriums are acceptable as a last resort. The third step is tem-
porary housing, which allows victims to reestablish household
routines in nonpreferred locations or structures. The last step is
permanent housing, which reestablishes household routines in
preferred locations and structures. Households vary in the pro-
gression and duration of each type of housing and the transition
from one stage to another can be delayed unpredictably, as when
it took 9 days for shelter occupancy to peak after the Whittier
Narrows earthquake 共Bolin 1993兲. Particularly significant are the
problems faced by lower income households, which tend to be
headed disproportionately by females and racial/ethnic minorities.
Such households are more likely to experience destruction of their
homes because of preimpact locational vulnerability. This is es-
pecially true in developing countries such as Guatemala 共Bates
and Peacock 1987; Peacock et al. 1987兲, but also has been re-
ported in the U.S. 共Peacock and Girard 1997兲. The homes of these
households also are more likely to be destroyed because the struc-
tures were built according to older, less stringent building codes,
used lower quality construction materials and methods, and were
less well maintained 共Bolin and Bolton 1986兲. Because lower
income households have fewer resources on which to draw for
recovery, they also take longer to transition through the stages of
housing, sometimes remaining for extended periods of time in
severely damaged homes 共Girard and Peacock 1997兲. In other
cases, they are forced to accept as permanent what originally was
intended as temporary housing 共Peacock et al. 1987兲. Conse-
quently, there may still be low-income households in temporary
sheltering and temporary housing even after high-income house-
holds all have relocated to permanent housing 共Rubin et al. 1985;
Berke et al. 1993兲.
Socioeconomic Impacts
The property damage caused by disaster impact causes direct eco-
nomic losses that can be thought of as a loss in asset value 共Com-
mittee on Assessing the Costs of Natural Disasters 1999兲and this
can be measured by the cost of repair or replacement. Disaster
losses in the United States are initially borne by the affected
households, businesses, and local government agencies whose
property is damaged or destroyed but some of these losses are
redistributed during the disaster recovery process. There have
been many attempts to estimate the magnitude of direct losses
from individual disasters and the annual average losses from par-
ticular types of hazards 共e.g., Mileti 1999兲. Unfortunately, these
losses are difficult to determine precisely because there is no or-
ganization that tracks all of the relevant data and some data are
not recorded at all 共Charve
´riat 2000; Committee on Assessing the
Costs of Natural Disasters 1999兲. For insured property, the insur-
ers record the amount of the deductible and the reimbursed loss,
but uninsured losses are not recorded so they must be estimated—
often with questionable accuracy.
The ultimate economic impact of a disaster depends upon the
disposition of the damaged assets. Some of these assets are not
replaced and so their loss causes a reduction in consumption 共and,
thus, a decrease in the quality of life兲or a reduction in investment
共and, thus, a decrease in economic productivity兲. Other assets are
replaced—either through in-kind donations 共e.g., food and cloth-
ing兲or commercial purchases. In the latter case, the cost of re-
placement must come from some source of recovery funding,
which generally can be characterized as either intertemporal
transfers 共to the present time from past savings or future loan
payments兲or interpersonal transfers 共from one group to another at
a given time兲. Some of the specific mechanisms for financing
recovery include obtaining tax deductions or deferrals, unemploy-
ment benefits, loans 共paying back the principal at low- or no-
interest兲, grants 共requiring no return of principal兲, insurance pay-
offs, or additional employment. Other sources include depleting
cash financial assets 共e.g., savings accounts兲, selling tangible as-
sets, or migrating to an area with available housing, employment,
or less risk 共in some cases this is done by the principal wage
earner only兲.
In addition to direct economic losses, there are indirect losses
that arise from the interdependence of community subunits. Re-
search on the socioeconomic impacts of disasters 共Alesch et al.
NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW © ASCE / NOVEMBER 2003 / 179
1993; Dacy and Kunreuther 1969; Dalhamer and D’Sousa 1997;
Durkin 1984; Gordon et al. 1995; Kroll 1991; Lindell and Perry
1998; Nigg 1995; Tierney 1997兲suggests that the relationships
among the social units within a community can be described as a
state of dynamic equilibrium involving a steady flow of resources,
especially money. Specifically, a household’s linkages with the
community are defined by the money that it must pay for prod-
ucts, services, and infrastructure support. This money is obtained
from the wages that employers pay for the household’s labor.
Similarly, the linkages that a business has with the community are
defined by the money it provides to its employees, suppliers, and
infrastructure in exchange for inputs such as labor, materials and
services, and electric power, fuel, water/wastewater, telecommu-
nications, and transportation. Conversely, it provides products or
services to customers in exchange for the money it uses to pay for
its inputs.
Businesses’ operational vulnerability arises from their proxim-
ity to the point of maximum impact and the structural vulnerabil-
ity of the buildings in which they are located 共Tierney 1997;
Lindell and Perry 1998兲. Other sources of operational vulnerabil-
ity arise from dependency upon inputs as well as those who pur-
chase its outputs—distributors and customers. Evidence of busi-
nesses’ operational vulnerability to input disruptions can be seen
in data provided by Nigg 共1995兲, who reported that business man-
agers’ median estimate of the amount of time that they could
continue to operate without infrastructure was 0 h for electric
power, 4 h for telephones, 48 h for water/sewer, and 120 h for
fuel. If this infrastructure support is unavailable for time periods
longer than these, the businesses must suspend operations even if
they have suffered no damage to their structures or contents.
It also is important to recognize the financial impacts of recov-
ery 共in addition to the financial impacts of emergency response兲
on local government. Costs must be incurred for damage assess-
ment, emergency demolition, debris removal, infrastructure resto-
ration, and replanning stricken areas. In addition to these addi-
tional costs, there are decreased revenues due to loss or deferral
of sales taxes, business taxes, property taxes, personal income
taxes, and user fees.
Political Impacts
There is substantial evidence that disaster impacts can cause so-
cial activism resulting in political disruption, especially during the
seemingly interminable period of disaster recovery. The disaster
recovery period is the source of many victim grievances and this
creates many opportunities for community conflict, both in the
U.S. 共Bolin 1982, 1993兲and abroad 共Bates and Peacock 1987兲.
Victims usually attempt to recreate preimpact housing patterns,
but it can be problematic for their neighbors if victims attempt to
site mobile homes on their own lots while awaiting the recon-
struction of permanent housing. Conflicts arise because such
housing usually is considered to be a blight on the neighborhood
and neighbors are afraid that the ‘‘temporary’’ housing will be-
come permanent. Neighbors also are pitted against each other
when developers attempt to buy up damaged or destroyed prop-
erties and build multifamily units on lots previously zoned for
single family dwellings. Such rezoning attempts are a major
threat to the market value of owner-occupied homes but tend to
have less impact on renters because they have less incentive to
remain in the neighborhood. There are exceptions to this gener-
alization because some ethnic groups have very close ties to their
neighborhoods, even if they rent rather than own.
Victims often experience a decrease in the quality of life as-
sociated with their housing, with the following complaints being
most frequent. First, availability is a problem because there are
inadequate numbers of housing units and delays in movement
from temporary shelter to temporary housing and on to permanent
housing. Second, site characteristics are a problem because tem-
porary shelter and temporary housing often are far from work,
school, shopping, and preferred neighbors. Third, building char-
acteristics are a problem because of lack of affordability, inad-
equate size, poor quality, and designs that are incompatible with
personal or cultural preferences. Fourth, conditions of allocation
are a problem because recovery agencies impose financial condi-
tions, reporting requirements, and onsite inspections. All of these
complaints can cause political impacts by mobilizing victim
groups, especially if victims with grievances have a shared iden-
tity 共e.g., age or ethnicity兲or a history of past activism 共Tierney
et al. 2001兲. These researchers have contended that the situation
is especially problematic when cultural conflicts emerge from the
beliefs, values, artifacts, and behavior shared by members of a
subgroup differ from those of other groups, especially the major-
ity. These components of culture usually differ systematically
across demographic categories of victims and include acceptable
shelter and housing arrangements, sources and types of recovery
resources, and acceptable processes for distributing recovery as-
sistance. One particularly potent area of cultural conflict arises
from differences in people’s beliefs about the goals of recovery,
which involve people’s ultimate values regarding ‘‘what kind of
community we want to live in.’’ Many members of a community
seek to reestablish conditions just as they were before the disaster
while others envision the disaster as ‘‘instant urban renewal’’ that
provides an opportunity to achieve a radically different commu-
nity 共Rubin 1991; Dash et al. 1997兲.
Another source of conflict is the contrast between a personal-
istic culture in many victim communities, which is based upon
bonds of affection, and the universalistic culture of the alien relief
bureaucracy, which values rationality and efficiency over personal
loyalty even when engaged in humanitarian activity 共Bolin 1982;
Tierney et al. 2001兲. This conflict typically manifests itself in
differences in emphasis regarding a task 共material/economic兲ver-
sus social-emotional 共interpersonal relationships/emotional well-
being兲orientation toward recovery activities. In many cases, re-
covery is facilitated when outside recovery organizations hire
local ‘‘boundary spanners’’ to provide a link between these two
disparate cultures 共Berke et al. 1993兲.
Attempts to change prevailing patterns of civil governance can
arise when individuals sharing a grievance about the handling of
the recovery process seek to redress that grievance through col-
lective action. Consistent with Dynes’s 共1970兲typology of orga-
nizations, existing community groups with an explicit political
agenda may expand their membership to increase their strength,
whereas community groups without an explicit political agenda
may extend their domains to include disaster-related grievances.
Alternatively, new groups can emerge to influence local, state, or
federal government agencies and legislators to take actions that
they support and to terminate actions that they disapprove. In-
deed, such was the case for Latinos in Watsonville following the
Loma Prieta earthquake 共Tierney et al. 2001兲. Usually, commu-
nity action groups pressure government to provide them with ad-
ditional resources for recovering from disaster impact, but may
oppose candidates’ reelections or even seek to recall some politi-
cians from office 共Olson and Drury 1997; Shefner 1999; Prater
and Lindell 2000兲. The point here is not that disasters produce
political behavior that is different from that encountered in nor-
180 / NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW © ASCE / NOVEMBER 2003
mal life. Rather, disaster impacts might only produce a different
set of victims and grievances and, therefore, a minor variation on
the prevailing political agenda 共Morrow and Peacock 1997兲.
Community Recovery Resources
Community recovery resources can come from a variety of indi-
viduals and organizations. The victims themselves might have
financial 共e.g., savings and insurance兲as well as tangible assets
共e.g., property兲that are undamaged by hazard impact. As one
might expect, low-income victims tend to have lower levels of
savings, but they also are more likely to be victims of insurance
redlining and, thus, have been forced into contracts with insur-
ance companies that go bankrupt after the disaster. Thus even
those who plan ahead for disaster recovery can find themselves
without the financial resources they need 共Peacock and Girard
1997兲. Alternatively, the victims can promote their recovery by
bringing in additional funds through overtime employment or by
freeing up the needed funds by reducing their consumption below
preimpact levels. Friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers can
assist recovery through financial and inkind contributions, as can
community based organizations 共CBOs兲and local government. In
addition, the latter also can provide assistance by means of tax
deductions or deferrals.
The impact of a disaster on the housing recovery of affected
households depends upon a number of community characteristics.
One of these is the availability of housing vacancies, which vary
by size, quality, and price, as well as location. As indicated by
Bolin’s 共1993兲analysis of likely housing problems after a major
earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, the magnitude of
the housing shortage will depend upon the number of units lost in
relation to the number of vacancies existing before disaster im-
pact. In turn, the number of units lost will be determined by the
type of hazard agent and its magnitude and scope of impact. An-
other factor is the proximity of friends and relatives with whom to
stay, but this generally is a short-term solution because the rela-
tionship between victim and host families often becomes strained
after a month 共Bolin 1993兲. Moreover, extended families some-
times cannot help because they also are victims 共Morrow and
Peacock 1997兲. This is a problem in areas with low mobility
where most of the extended family lives in the affected commu-
nity and tends to be most prevalent in lower income groups that
have few alternative resources. Temporary shelter in school gym-
nasiums and church auditoriums also is limited in duration be-
cause these facilities need to revert to their primary functions as
soon as possible. Indeed, these facilities may be in short supply
because their long-span roofs make them especially vulnerable to
hazard impact 共e.g., earthquake shaking and hurricane wind
forces兲.
Availability of temporary 共mobile homes or substandard hous-
ing兲and permanent housing generally is limited by their preim-
pact supply in the housing market. In the United States, the Fed-
eral Emergency Management Agency 共FEMA兲arranges to have
mobile homes brought in if necessary, but even this expedient
method of expanding the housing stock takes time. Even when
houses are only moderately damaged, loss of housing functional-
ity may be a problem if there is massive disruption of infrastruc-
ture. In such cases, tent cities may be necessary if undamaged
housing is beyond commuting range 关e.g., Homestead, Florida
after Hurricane Andrew 共Peacock and Girard 1997兲兴. Mass relo-
cation has been attempted in the past, but it usually is undesirable
because it creates social and psychological disruption and delays
physical reconstruction and economic recovery 关e.g., Darwin,
Australia after Cyclone Tracy, see Britton and Wettenhall 共1990兲兴.
Another major factor affecting household recovery is the na-
ture of a community’s private and public housing support pro-
grams. Some of this assistance comes from primary groups 共i.e.,
the resources of friends, relatives, and coworkers兲, but other as-
sistance comes from charitable organizations at the local, re-
gional, national, and international levels 共e.g., American Red
Cross兲. The impacts of a disaster on household functioning can be
reduced by financial assistance from government agencies such as
FEMA and the Small Business Administration 共SBA兲, but this
form of aid typically has potentially unpopular conditions. Ability
to repay is an issue because SBA loan criteria favor those with a
greater ability to recover on their own. Low interest SBA loans go
to those who would have qualified for commercial loans, not
those who are in the greatest need 共Tierney 1997兲. It is not clear
how SBA can overcome this problem because the loan criteria are
designed to screen out those who are likely to default. If the
criteria were relaxed, the program would continue to be a loan
program for those who repaid, but would be converted to a grant
program for those who default. Other unpopular conditions have
been reported in FEMA’s temporary housing assistance program
where homeowners receive three months of support whereas rent-
ers receive only two months. Moreover, the criteria require appli-
cants to demonstrate need in order to receive assistance, but this
creates antagonism toward ‘‘government intrusiveness’’ 共Bolin
1982兲.
Recovery resources can be administrative as well as financial.
For example, disaster-induced discontinuities in economic func-
tioning can sharply increase the demand for specific types of
products such as flashlights, batteries, electric generators, and ice.
There also is a significant increase in demand for services such as
construction. In most cases, the increase in demand has precisely
the effect that would be predicted by economic theory—prices
tend to rise substantially 关however, see Dacy and Kunreuther
共1969兲for a counterexample兴. Instead of providing funds for vic-
tims to pay higher prices, many disaster-stricken jurisdictions
enact ordinances preventing ‘‘price gouging’’ and requiring li-
censing of out-of-town contractors 共Rubin 1991兲. They also create
consumer information programs to inform residents about select-
ing a reliable contractor, to advise them of their contractual rights
in construction projects, and to provide telephone hotlines to re-
port violators 共Schwab et al. 1998兲.
Some of the needed financial resources come from the house-
holds themselves, but kin networks are another major source of
assistance. Financial assistance is available from CBOs such as
local churches, but is limited in amounts. It also is available from
commercial banks and from local government agencies, but most
of this assistance is in the form of loans that must be repaid.
Lower income groups have difficulty obtaining assistance from
these sources because they frequently do not meet the criteria for
obtaining a loan.
Extra-Community Assistance
Extra-community assistance can be obtained from a variety of
sources. One major source is nongovernmental organizations’
共NGOs’兲in-kind contributions of goods 共food, medicine, and
shelter兲and services 共e.g., medical support兲. NGOs such as the
Red Cross, regional governments, and national governments also
can provide financial assistance through grants that do not need to
be repaid by the victims or loans that might be offered at below-
market interest rates. Government at all levels also can provide
unemployment benefits and tax deductions or deferrals. Of
NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW © ASCE / NOVEMBER 2003 / 181
course, the significance of tax deductions or deferrals declines
with income and the very poorest are unlikely to benefit from
these mechanisms. The amount and timeliness of extra-
community assistance depends upon the resources that remain
undamaged in the remainder of the country, which is a function of
the disaster’s impact ratio. Another important factor is the degree
to which a community is vertically integrated with higher levels
of government and horizontally integrated with other jurisdictions
at the same level of government 共Berke et al. 1993兲. Communities
that are more strongly integrated are more likely to receive the
resources they need to recover.
Discussion and Conclusions
Natural disasters have been found to have no measurable long-
term impacts on the overall viability of communities in the United
States. This appears to be because even the largest disasters in the
United States have small impact ratios 共geographic, demographic,
and economic兲. Thus there are considerable resources in the re-
mainder of the country to support the recovery of households and
businesses that lack the economic assets to finance their own
recovery. Recovery resources flow to affected communities that
are strongly linked vertically and horizontally to resources in the
remainder of the country 共Berke et al. 1993兲. Nonetheless, some
segments of these communities are either disproportionately af-
fected by disaster impacts or poorly integrated into the recovery
networks, or 共frequently兲both.
The proposition, illustrated in Fig. 1, that the magnitude of the
physical impacts can be reduced by investments in hazard miti-
gation and emergency preparedness practices has become a basic
premise of FEMA’s National Mitigation Plan 共e.g., Federal Emer-
gency Management Agency 1995兲. One goal of hazard mitigation
is to promote the adoption of land use practices that minimize
unnecessary exposures of population and structures in high-risk
areas. In places where the economic advantages of the location
outweigh its potential losses due to disaster impact, building con-
struction practices should be adopted that minimize the danger to
the contents and occupants of structures. These hazard mitigation
practices should be supplemented by emergency preparedness
practices such as evacuation to avoid casualties in structures
whose resistance to extreme environmental events cannot be as-
sured.
A major challenge for future research is to identify ways in
which hazard-prone communities can be induced to reduce their
vulnerability.According to economic theory, excessive hazard ex-
posure and structural vulnerability arise from systemic complexi-
ties that can be characterized as market failures such as inad-
equate information, barriers to market entry and exit, and capital
flow restrictions 共Lindell et al. 1997; Kunreuther 1998兲. An ideal
pattern of socioeconomic development would be one in which
risk area occupants purchase property on the basis of adequate
information about hazard vulnerability. Moreover, they would lo-
cate only where it was economically advantageous in the long
term as well as in the short term, and would diversify their assets
over other locations and other forms of financial 共e.g., savings
accounts, insurance, stocks/bonds兲and social 共e.g., extended fam-
ily兲recovery assistance. Finally, risk area occupants would adopt
hazard adjustments to limit their losses if a disaster were to strike.
These adjustments would include hazard mitigation 共e.g., land use
practices and building construction practices兲and emergency pre-
paredness practices 共e.g., detection and warning systems兲to avoid
casualties and property damage.
Actual patterns of development are significantly different from
the ideal. In many cases, there is migration to hazard-prone areas
because of beneficial land uses for agriculture, transportation, and
recreation 关i.e., people are ‘‘pulled in,’’ Bolin and Bolton 共1986兲兴.
This is compounded by a lack of accountability for investment
decisions. Developers are at risk for only a short period of time
before they pass an investment on to others 共homeowners, insur-
ers, mortgage holders兲who ultimately will experience hazard im-
pact. Such transactions can occur because many risk area resi-
dents are new arrivals who are unaware of the hazard. Even long-
term residents of risk areas sometimes have little or no
information about hazards and adjustments to those hazards be-
cause such information is suppressed by those with a major stake
in the community’s economic development 共Meltsner 1979兲.
Even when there is local knowledge about hazards, there often is
a lack of hazard intrusiveness because events that are not recent
or frequent tend not to be thought about or discussed 共Lindell and
Prater 2000兲. Moreover, people have an ‘‘optimistic bias’’ and
tend to ignore low probability events or think of them as occur-
ring far in the future. In particular, politicians tend to ignore con-
sequences that they expect to occur only after their term of office
is over, so only frequent, recent, or major impacts lead to in-
creased adoption of community-wide hazard adjustments such as
land use controls or more stringent building codes. Even then, the
‘‘window of opportunity’’for the adoption of these adjustments is
open only temporarily 共Birkland 1998; Prater and Lindell 2000兲.
Increased hazard exposure also is caused by displacement
from safer areas due to population pressures 共i.e., people are
‘‘pushed in’’兲. When this occurs, the demographic distribution of
risk tends to be inequitable because geographical locations often
are systematically related to their residents’ demographic
characteristics—especially their 共lack of兲economic and political
power to decrease hazard vulnerability. This pattern is very com-
mon in developing countries such as Brazil, where favelas are
located in flood plains and on landslideprone slopes because the
residents cannot afford to purchase homes in safer areas.
There also are problems in the adoption of effective hazard
adjustments. One of these arises from households’ and businesses’
concentration of hazard exposure 共i.e., having physical and finan-
cial assets located only in the risk area兲. Diversification is an
effective way of avoiding concentration of hazard exposure, but
low-income households and small businesses often have so few
physical or financial assets that they cannot afford to locate some
of them in safer areas. Hazard insurance is problematic because it
tends to suffer from adverse selection, which means that only
those who are at the greatest risk are likely to purchase it 共Kun-
reuther 1998兲. Moreover, externalities arise when system dynam-
ics cause the actions of one party to increase the vulnerability of
another. In floodplains, upstream deforestation and urbanization
increase the speed of rainfall runoff and, thus, increase down-
stream vulnerability. Technological protection works such as
dams and levees can reduce such increases in hazard vulnerabil-
ity, but many risk area occupants overestimate the effectiveness of
such hazard adjustments 共Harding and Parker 1974兲. This can
cause further development of floodplains and, thus, increased haz-
ard exposure that exceeds the risk reduction provided by the ad-
justment that was adopted.
One of the most important practical lessons to be learned
about disaster impact assessment is that local planners should
know their communities’ economic base 共e.g., types of commer-
cial, industrial, and agricultural businesses兲and types of employ-
ment 共professional, skilled, unskilled兲within areas prone to major
hazards. They should prepare for disaster recovery by identifying
182 / NATURAL HAZARDS REVIEW © ASCE / NOVEMBER 2003
vulnerable community subunits and developing recovery plans
before disaster strikes. They also should anticipate the ways in
which their communities’ housing construction programs 共e.g.,
zoning, subdivision regulations, building codes兲could affect vul-
nerable segments of the community by developing preimpact di-
saster recovery plans that define processes for expedited review of
building designs and building inspections 共Schwab et al. 1998兲.
Another lesson for local planners is that low-income workers
are likely to have a more difficult time finding temporary and
permanent housing. This can be a severe problem for some busi-
nesses, such as restaurants, hotels, and other tourist oriented busi-
nesses, that are dependent upon low-skill, low-income employees
共Drabek 1994兲. After a disaster, local planners and CBOs should
monitor and address the unmet needs of different geographic
areas, economic sectors, and demographic groups. They also
should anticipate the emergence of political conflicts about recov-
ery goals, the orientations of extra-community organizations, and
frustration over the pace of recovery. One way of mitigating these
political impacts is to anticipate the conditions that cause them
and to prepare disaster recovery plans before disaster strikes.
Another important implication of the research on disaster im-
pacts is that the reduction of hazard vulnerability must be a com-
munity effort, not an individual one. A home or business that is
designed and constructed to withstand extreme environmental
forces will not necessarily protect against the disruption of critical
linkages to other parts of the community. For businesses, this is
because disruption of any one of the four linkages—to suppliers,
workers, infrastructure, or customers—can cause a business to
fail. Thus a business can experience disaster-induced losses, in-
cluding bankruptcy, even if it has successfully mitigated the
threats to the building in which it is housed and the contents of
that building 共i.e., personnel, equipment, materials, and supplies兲.
Alternatively, a business can fail if there is a major shift in the
demand for its products and services that has been induced by the
disaster. For example, customers’ demand for discretionary prod-
ucts such as sporting goods may decline significantly if they are
spending all of their money on construction materials. Such a
reduction in demand might not materialize immediately and, in-
deed, could occur in businesses that are not even located within
the disaster impact area. Thus businesses engaged in hazard miti-
gation must not stop when they have achieved protection for their
own buildings and contents. A business’s survival is assured only
if those upon whom it depends also protect themselves.
A similar principle applies to local governments; they should
expect a continuation of demands for routine services and provi-
sion of disaster-related services even if they also have suffered
damage to their facilities and casualties to their employees. More-
over, these demands will come during a time at which decreased
solvency of households and businesses jeopardizes local govern-
ment revenues derived from taxes on property and sales, user
fees, and licenses. Thus local government agencies must adopt
hazard mitigation measures to ensure their ability to provide ser-
vices during the recovery period 共Perry and Lindell 1997兲.
In summary, it is clear that there has been significant progress
over that past 25 years in developing an understanding of the
complexities involved in avoiding and recovering from the com-
munity impacts of disasters. Many studies have addressed the
psychosocial, sociodemographic, socioeconomic, and sociopoliti-
cal impacts of disasters, but there have been few attempts to syn-
thesize this work. Differential impacts of disasters on community
subgroups have been addressed extensively in the psychosocial
domain, and the ways in which differentials in sociodemographic
impacts produce sociopolitical consequences has begun to attract
significant attention. However, documentation of systematic dif-
ferences in socioeconomic impacts remains sparse.
In addition to developing greater integration among areas of
research 共which typically follow disciplinary lines兲, future re-
search must also address some other deficiencies. First, this article
addressed only natural hazards, but technological hazards also
should be addressed because contamination by some toxic chemi-
cals or radiological materials can produce impacts that are more
persistent than physical destruction. For example, areas around
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant must be isolated for many
years to come. By contrast, toxic gases affect people without
harming property 共e.g., the release of methyl isocyanate near
Bhopal India兲. These differences in physical impacts would be
expected to produce corresponding differences in social impacts.
Second, there is only a limited understanding of the ways in
which conclusions based upon research in the United States apply
to other countries. One major variable is the nature of the hazards
that different countries face. Flooding is a worldwide concern, but
hurricanes and earthquakes affect only certain areas of the globe.
These differences in hazard exposure have a significant effect on
the observed levels of disaster impacts and need to be accounted
for in future research. A second variable, the physical size of an
affected country, is important because the geographic impact ratio
共the size of the impact area in relation to the size of the country兲
is another potential confounding variable in understanding disas-
ter impacts. Related variables include the demographic impact
ratio, which measures disaster casualties in terms of a country’s
total population, and the economic impact ratio, which measures
disaster losses in relation to a country’s annual Gross Domestic
Product. The latter is influenced by a country’s level of economic
development, with industrialized economies appearing to be more
resilient to disasters than developing economies, which are char-
acterized by subsistence-level agriculture that relies on little in-
frastructure support, and has few exchanges of money for prod-
ucts, services, and labor.
Other important factors include similarity in the levels of haz-
ard mitigation, emergency preparedness, community recovery re-
sources, and access to extra-community assistance. These vari-
ables are confounded to some extent with the nature of countries’
political structures, especially the degree to which power is cen-
tralized and the degree to which local government is horizontally
and vertically integrated. In many respects, these variables raise
questions about the degree to which the experience in the United
States is relevant to many developing countries. If future research
can identify the factors that affect the generalizability of the
United States’ experience, this will clarify the ways in which
other countries can reduce their vulnerability to disaster impacts
and promote recovery when disaster does strike. It will be par-
ticularly important to examine the ways in which these variables
influence the dynamics of hazard vulnerability, as well as the
processes of adopting and implementing effective hazard mitiga-
tion, emergency preparedness, and recovery assistance practices.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation
under Grant No. BCS 9796297. None of the conclusions ex-
pressed here necessarily reflects views other than those of the
writers.
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