Assessing the Socio-Demographic Impact of Hurricane Floyd in Eastern North Carolina: Combining Quantitative, Qualitative, and Spatial Methods

Daniel H. de Vries, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Three hurricanes (Dennis, Floyd, and Irene) impacted the lives and livelihoods of the citizens of North Carolina in the Fall of 1999. The cumulative effect of these storms devastated eastern North Carolina, but Hurricane Floyd is the storm that caused the greatest impact on the health and welfare of individuals, families, and communities in the region. High winds, heavy rainfall, flooding, rough seas, and damaging surf produced by Hurricane Floyd effected Atlantic coastal states from September 14 - 18, 1999. Although Floyd weakened from a category 4 to a category 2 hurricane before it made landfall in North Carolina on September 16th, its large size and heavy rainfall caused more damage than its high winds. Hurricane Floyd's initial impact on North Carolina included 51 deaths, more than 100,000 displaced to shelters, 7,000 homes destroyed, and 56,000 homes damaged by extensive flooding from rainfall exceeding 20 inches in most of eastern North Carolina. Sixty-six North Carolina counties were declared eligible for Federal Disaster Assistance while all counties were eligible for disaster mitigation. The aftermath of Hurricane Floyd is still impacting the state of North Carolina and the counties and communities "down east". North Carolinian state and federal officials have agreed that a lot of the devastation could have been avoided if only there had been more accurate Floodplain Insurance Rate Maps. As a response to this notion, the state has further committed itself to one of the most ambitious, high-technology floodplain mapping project ever undertaken by an individual state. At the same time, the effects of the inaccuracy of the old floodplain insurance risk maps makes itself known in the physical landscape through the imposition of a significant federal buy-out program intended to move all critical infrastructure and households out of the dangerous floodplain areas wherever possible, which is complemented by a state funded relocation program allowing citizens to buy a house in the same tax-base. After the floods, several research groups at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were provided with funds to study the social effects of North Carolina hurricanes. In this context, the Carolina Population Center's Spatial Analysis Laboratory has been engaged in a project that illustrates the use of geographic information systems coupled with demographic data in the context of natural disasters. The purpose of the project is to provide a consolidated resource for researchers and other parties interested in the impacts of Hurricane Floyd. This poster will provide an overview of the research that has been resulting from this project to date, reporting on the socio-demographic consequences of the floods for affected areas. Combining demographic data with geographic information systems, the poster will visually illustrate the socio-demographic characteristics of the people who were displaced due to the floods. In a cruel twist of fate, Floyd inflicted the most damage on African-American communities already plagued by poverty and high unemployment. In this context, the differential impact between rural and urban areas will be characterized and framed in the light of environmental justice issues. Secondly, the impact of the relocation program will be illustrated for Lenoir county, spatially assessing residential movement. Third, the influence of social capacity in dealing with the flood disaster will be assessed by focusing on the impact of the flooding on the census enumeration. With the floods occurring in September of 1999, many residents who lived in flooded areas were not at their usual address, and several places lost substantial people due to the floods, affecting their tax base and budgets. The impact of this displacement on the enumeration will be quantitatively illustrated for two cities, Greenville and Kinston, as well as the towns of Grifton and Princeville. Additionally, documentary and cultural data will be presented based on interviews with citizens, town and county managers on other long-term impacts of the floods, including photographic images of the flood, and notions of residents centering on the impact of the flood on the cultural resilience of an affected neighborhood in Kinston. Combining ethnographic, quantitative, and spatial analysis methods, these results will visually present a socio-demographic and cultural view on the long-term consequences of natural disasters in a developed context. The results show the contribution which population-environment research combined with geographic information systems can bring to disaster studies, environmental justice concerns, and land-use planning. The research also provides insights in the long term socio-demographic and cultural consequences of the floods, both at the place of impact and in the process of recovery.