JULY 9, 2024 — The U.S. Census Bureau today released the 2022 Community Resilience Estimates (CRE) summer ranking tables for areas with at least moderate risk of hurricanes, wildfires and strong winds. This coincides with the start of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, dry conditions, and severe thunderstorms in the United States.

Community resilience is the capacity of individuals and households within a community to absorb the external stresses of a disaster. Using 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year microdata modeled with Population Estimates Program data, the CRE measures the social vulnerability of a community that inhibits community resilience. Social vulnerability includes topics such as poverty status, disability status, age, broadband internet access, and health insurance coverage. Hazard risk data come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Risk Index and are based on the expected loss of building value, population and agricultural value each year.

This release includes an updated data visualization tool and ranking tables that will help users view counties by hazard risk as well as map census tracts by level of social vulnerability to disaster with at least a moderate risk of summertime disasters. The ranking tables list census tracts and counties most socially vulnerable to these hazards. Estimates show counties most socially vulnerable to hurricanes and strong winds (damaging winds exceeding 58 mph) were concentrated in the South; those most socially vulnerable to wildfires were concentrated in the South and West.

CRE data can help local planners, policymakers, public health officials, and community stakeholders assess the potential resiliency of communities and plan mitigation and recovery strategies in the event of a disaster.

A future release is planned to include rankings for all counties and census tracts. 2022 CRE ranking tables for winter weather and flooding hazards were released on January 30. Winter weather and flooding hazards data are also included in the data visualization tool.

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