RAPID: Texas Winter Storm

As one of the first natural disasters striking the continental United States since the COVID-19 outbreak, the 2021 Winter Storm has caused severe economic and health damage in Texas as millions of residents lost electricity and water supply amid the record-breaking cold outbreak and an ongoing pandemic. In response to these challenges, this Grant for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project assesses the influence of extreme weather, power outages, the COVID-19 pandemic, and online social network use on Texas residents’ access to resources and information embedded in their social network (i.e., social capital) and recovery from the winter storm (i.e., disaster resilience).

Additionally, the research seeks to identify if the use of public (e.g., Twitter) vs. invitation-only social networks (e.g., Nextdoor) alleviates or exacerbates the disparity in social capital and resilience. Findings from this project on the one hand help us understand the long-term influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on our society, while on the other contribute to the design and implementation of future disaster relief programs targeting underprivileged communities in the U.S.

Utilizing a longitudinal survey targeting residents of 108 counties in Texas with major disaster declaration, this project seeks to achieve three objectives. First, it identifies the influence of socioeconomic status, extreme weather, power outages, and the COVID-19 pandemic on Texas residents’ access to social capital during the 2021 winter storm.

Second, the proposed project pinpoints the extent to which the use of different online social networks (i.e., public vs. invitation-only online social networks) facilitated Texas residents’ access to bonding, bridging, and linking social capital during the winter storm. Third, it seeks to identify the extent to which online social network use and social capital acquisition mitigated the psychological, physical, and financial impacts inflicted by the winter storm and power outages.

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.