RAPID/Collaborative Research: Cascading Impacts of the 2021 Texas Winter Storm on Subsidized Housing Residents: A Comparative Analysis

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The 2021 Texas Winter Storm included the passage of three arctic fronts from 10 through 20 February. As numerous Texas counties faced record low temperatures, the independent electric grid for Texas nearly experienced a total collapse and more than 5 million people lost access to electricity. The cascading effects of this disaster included water service disruptions, boil-water advisories, communication and transportation disruptions, food shortages, and residential dislocation with implications for COVID-19 transmission and treatment. The purpose of this Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project is to conduct a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the cascading impacts of the 2021 Texas Winter Storm on residents in eight metropolitan areas. Reliable assessment of household experiences is time-sensitive, and RAPID funding is enabling the collection of high quality, ephemeral data from affected households. The project will advance academic, practitioner, and public knowledge regarding factors influencing societal vulnerability to cascading disaster impacts during a pandemic which will be foundational to future efforts that seek to enhance resilience to such events nationwide. The project team will disseminate findings via multiple outlets, including by publishing articles in top-tier journals and delivering webinars to relevant stakeholder audiences. Additionally, findings will be shared via a website providing stakeholders, researchers, educators and other stakeholders with access to information about adverse impacts of the 2021 Texas Winter Storm. Through these channels, the project will extend societal benefits beyond the academic community.This project applies a social vulnerability to disasters perspective to the 2021 Texas Winter Storm to advance knowledge of the socially uneven impacts of cascading disasters, and the disaster vulnerabilities experienced by subsidized rental housing residents. We will investigate the following research questions: (1) What cascading impacts did residents experience in response to the 2021 Texas Winter Storm? (2) How did cascading winter storm impacts differ based on social characteristics, housing status, electricity grid service provider (ERCOT vs. others), and metropolitan area? (3) How did the social characteristics of residents, their housing status, their electricity grid service provider, and the local physical attributes of the storm (e.g., temperature and precipitation) influence the cascading winter storm impacts they experienced? (4) How did the COVID-19 pandemic amplify the cascading effects of the winter storm on residents’ well-being? The project involves a social survey conducted by cellular phone in English/Spanish with households in HUD-assisted multi-family housing and households residing in private (non-HUD-assisted) homes, in eight Texas metropolitan areas. By systematically examining the social, physical, and built environment determinants of this disaster’s multifaceted effects—based on comparisons between subsidized vs. private housing, residence within vs. outside the ERCOT grid, and across eight MSAs—our project seeks to transform fundamental knowledge of social vulnerability to cascading infrastructure failure due to disasters. Additionally, it will advance knowledge regarding disaster vulnerabilities experienced by a socially disadvantaged and under-studied group—residents of subsidized multi-family housing.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.