Flooding Disproportionately Harms Black Neighborhoods

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/flooding-disproportionately-harms-black-neighborhoods/


By Thomas Frank, E&E News on June 2, 2020

When Hurricane Harvey devastated Texas in 2017, the neighborhood that suffered the worst flood damage was a section of southwest Houston where 49% of the residents are nonwhite.

When Hurricane Katrina hit southeast Louisiana in 2005, the damage was the most extensive in the region’s African American neighborhoods.

Of the seven ZIP codes that suffered the costliest flood damage from Katrina, four of them had populations that were at least 75% black, government records show.

Flooding in the U.S. disproportionately harms African American neighborhoods, an E&E News analysis of federal flood insurance payments shows.

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A major concern about flooding in cities is that the residents who are most vulnerable—those who live in the lowest-lying areas or in neighborhoods without green space to absorb water—are often poor and members of minority groups.

“The reality is that you typically find in our floodplains many of society’s vulnerable populations,” Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, said at the conference yesterday. “When you look at the entire urban community, there are profound impacts due to urban flooding that go beyond physical property damage [and include] the risk of injury and loss of life.”

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A report published in March 2019 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that while urban flooding affects a wide range of demographics, it is most harmful to minorities, low-income residents, and others without the resources to handle the damage and disruption.

“While severe storms fall on the rich and poor alike, the capacity to respond to and recover from flooding is much lower in socially vulnerable populations that even in the best of times are struggling to function,” the report concluded.

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The flood insurance data does not include properties that were damaged by floods but were not insured. Many people who live in flood zones do not have flood insurance.

“Urban flooding definitely merits national attention,” said Berginnis of the floodplain association. “We are going to have worsening urban flooding problems due to development and climate change.”