Rebuild or Relocate? Resilience and Postdisaster Decision-Making After Hurricane Sandy.

Area of Science:

• Disaster recovery and resilience studies.
• Urban planning and policy analysis.
• Social science research on environmental hazards.

Background:

• Hurricane Sandy caused significant damage along the U.S. East Coast in 2012.
• New York initiated a home buyout program to relocate residents from hazard-prone areas.
• Understanding factors influencing participation in voluntary relocation programs is crucial for disaster mitigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the relationship between community resilience and homeowners' decisions in a post-disaster buyout program.
• To explore how community-level factors influence participation in permanent relocation initiatives.
• To compare decision-making processes in two New York communities with differing buyout participation rates.

Main Methods:

• Mixed-methods approach combining community surveys (N=133) and in-depth interviews (N=28).
• Inclusion of residents from Oakwood Beach and Rockaway Park, two New York City communities heavily impacted by Hurricane Sandy.
• Analysis focused on the interplay between community resilience, place of residence, and the decision to accept a home buyout.

Main Results:

• Community resilience was found to moderate the effect of the community of residence on the buyout decision, resulting in divergent responses.
• Contextual factors such as the history of natural disasters, local cultural norms, and sense of place significantly explained the differing community responses.
• Residents' decisions were not solely based on risk but were deeply influenced by community-specific social and cultural dynamics.

Conclusions:

• Community resilience and place-based factors are critical in understanding homeowners' responses to disaster mitigation policies like home buyouts.
• Disaster policy should consider the unique contextual factors of affected communities to enhance program effectiveness and voluntary participation.
• Future disaster mitigation strategies must integrate social and cultural dimensions of resilience for successful long-term recovery and relocation efforts.