RAPID: Infrastructural Failures and the Role of the Built Environment: The Case of the Winter Storm in Houston, Texas

This Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project addresses the research question of how the built environment – housing and neighborhood – impact the susceptibility of older adults to infrastructure failures during the winter storm in Houston, Texas. Extreme weather events can have life threatening consequences for elder populations that are often more limited in mobility and hence more likely to stay in and around their residences.

These threats can potentially be compounded by housing type and structure, neighborhood-scale infrastructure, and amenities, especially when accompanied by critical infrastructure failures such as power outages. Despite the significance of these built environmental factors, their significance and impact on the vulnerable population such as the older adult during disasters has not been examined closely.

The arctic waves that hit Texas in 2021 provide an opportunity to fill these gaps and advance our understanding of how the built environment and neighborhood characteristics can have compounding or mitigating consequences for our elderly population’s vulnerabilities during extreme weather events. In addition, project findings can serve as starting points for the development of age-specific interventions, and potentially lead to the establishment of programs to improve geriatric disaster response thereby supporting NSF's mission of advancing the health, prosperity, and welfare of our nation’s communities.

Specifically, this RAPID project investigates how elderly individuals were impacted based on single vs. multiple family housing (single family attached and detached, multi-family under and over 5, townhomes), housing qualities (insulation, ventilation, housing materials, energy efficiency, heater availability), and neighborhood amenities (shelters, generators, social service organizations, hospitals, transportation access, street conditions, safety). The project will also examine local responses by the government and social service organizations and their innovative solutions to an unprecedented disaster.

Project findings will contribute to advancing knowledge on the role of housing types and structure as well as neighborhood-scale infrastructure in disaster impact and response to extreme weather events.

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.