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Planning and Responding to Disasters Using the American Housing Survey

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1 February 2010    
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Planning and Responding to Disasters Using the American Housing Survey
Covershot of 2007 Metropolitan Disaster Planning: Analytical Support of the American Housing Survey.The data in the American Housing Survey (AHS) provide a strong foundation for analyses related to disaster planning and response. They enable disaster planners to evaluate community resilience, housing stock vulnerability, and potential housing issues that can arise in the wake of a disaster. To illustrate how the data can be utilized, 2007 Metropolitan Disaster Planning: Analytical Support of the American Housing Survey includes a simulation of the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Florida metropolitan statistical area (MSA), which reveals that this area is highly sensitive to disturbances in housing stock availability.
This analysis focuses on available units by number of rooms and vacant space available within a relatively small sample of zones in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale MSA. However, the methodology could be similarly applied across all zones of the MSA and all disaster-prone MSAs included in the AHS. At each iteration, disaster planners can evaluate disaster-related variables and critical components of the housing stock to understand what would happen if individual or multiple zones are affected by a major disaster.
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Key Findings

  • Even under the most unrealistic of assumptions, serious housing deficits, both in terms of available units with the appropriate number of rooms and in vacant space available, arise when more than 30 percent of the MSA is affected by disaster.


  • The majority of displaced households will be forced to live in housing units of a different size, share units with other households, or move out of the MSA.



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