Hurricane Helene’s Impact on the Socially Vulnerable in North Carolina

Hurricane Helene struck areas that may have a particularly difficult time recovering from the disaster. Counties in declared disaster zones tended to have higher shares of older adults, people with disabilities, and mobile homes than those outside the disaster areas.

This analysis includes but separates Mecklenburg County, the most populous county in the disaster zone and home to Charlotte, North Carolina’s most populous city. Mecklenburg County received a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) major disaster declaration October 7. But it was separated from this analysis because its large population skews the percentages from rural, less populous counties that absorbed much of the extreme, unrelenting precipitation.

Figure 2 shows metrics of social vulnerability for counties with and without major disaster declarations. Mecklenburg County is represented separately.

Counties with a major disaster declaration tended to have higher shares of adults age 65 and older. Outside of Mecklenburg County, 21.9% of adults in disaster counties were age 65 or older compared to 17.4% in other counties.

Older adults are at increased risk of death and long-term consequences from hurricanes and other disasters. For instance, when Hurricane Florence struck North Carolina in 2018, two out of every three deaths were among adults age 60 or older, and nearly half of deaths were among those 70 and over.

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) asks about six disability types: hearing, vision, cognitive, ambulatory, self-care, and independent living difficulties. Respondents who report having any of these difficulties are considered to have a disability.

Outside of Mecklenburg County, where rates of disability are comparatively low, 15.9% of people living in disaster counties were estimated to have a disability versus 13.5% of people in non-disaster counties.

One in four or 138,000 mobile homes in North Carolina were in counties under a major disaster declaration.

Mobile homes were more prevalent as a share of all housing units in counties with a major disaster declaration. Not including Mecklenburg County, which has very few mobile homes, about 15.4% of housing units in those counties were mobile homes compared to 12% in the rest of the state.

Mobile homes are especially vulnerable to powerful winds and flash floods during hurricanes. Unlike most other forms of housing, FEMA recommends evacuating mobile homes and seeking shelter elsewhere.

The Census Bureau tracks social vulnerability to disasters through its Community Resilience Estimates program, which provides information on where people may have problems withstanding the impacts of the disaster.

The CRE uses 10 components of social vulnerability to build a single metric for every neighborhood in the United States:

• Poverty.
• Caregiving.
• Household crowding.
• Communication barriers.
• Unemployment.
• Disability.
• Lack of health insurance coverage.
• Advanced age.
• Lack of access to vehicles.
• Lack of access to broadband internet.

Three or more components are regarded as high social vulnerability to disasters.

The Atlantic Hurricane season is from June 1 through November 30. Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida Wednesday, causing major flooding throughout the state, knocking out power for millions and spawning multiple tornadoes. The Census Bureau will continue to monitor the impact of disasters on the nation's people and economy to help those who need to make data driven decisions.