Hurricane Florence and Neighborhood Change

This study aims to research how Hurricane Florence's flooding has influenced neighborhood change processes in New Hanover County, North Carolina. Hurricane Florence was a Category 1 storm that made landfall in Wrightsville Beach, NC, in the fall of 2018. Florence was characterized as a long-lived storm with major flooding along many coastal and inland regions of North Carolina and other states. As natural disasters increase in intensity and frequency due to the implications of climate change, more research has shifted toward how disasters can impact societies not just environmentally but also socially and economically. This project was inspired by research conducted in New Orleans, Louisiana, that studied the long-term impacts of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Please see the “learn more” section below to read related studies and learn more about neighborhood change.

This research project will consist of two parts. One part involves using publicly available data from the US Census Bureau, American Community Survey, and New Hanover County public records to analyze population trends or patterns that may coincide with flood data from Hurricane Florence. The second part involves a community survey to gain residential opinions and perspectives about their experience with Florence and how the storm may have impacted neighborhoods within New Hanover County in a long-term sense. If you would like to participate in this survey, please click the following link (in order to participate, you must be 18 years of age or older): Click here to take the survey!